


Keeping Faith

by Ladybug_21



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bicycles, F/M, Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24435484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: Beth's fingernails scraped gently against the wood of the church door, knowing that the man she so desperately wanted to see in this moment would not be inside even if the door miraculously creaked open.In which Beth Latimer knows exactly what she wants, Paul Coates takes much longer to figure out precisely what he wants, and the rest of the Broadchurch community does its best to help them along.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller, Beth Latimer & Chloe Latimer, Beth Latimer & Ellie Miller, Ellie Miller & Maggie Radcliffe, Jocelyn Knight/Maggie Radcliffe, Paul Coates & Maggie Radcliffe, Paul Coates/Beth Latimer
Comments: 17
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm definitely not the only one who's noticed that Paul Coates is *decidedly* the best boyfriend material on _Broadchurch_ (sorry, Hardy, love you to pieces, but you are an absolute disaster when it comes to dating and really human interactions generally). But while rewatching the entire show recently, I was reminded of all the times I found myself questioning why Beth Latimer didn't seem nearly as interested in her sexy vicar as she should have. And this was the result. I own no rights to _Broadchurch_ , even if I seem to spend half of my life these days in their sandbox.

Beth had never been a church-going woman, and she never intended to become one. Even in her darkest moments, even when the pain of Danny's death was so suffocating that it pressed dense around her throughout the day, she had gone to church because it was where she could be with her _community_ , not with God. In the world before Danny's death, God had been all but irrelevant; in the world after, God was a traitor. Yet here she was, standing once again in the graveyard, staring not at Danny's little grave and the fresh flowers laid on it, but up to the stone walls of the old church.

"Lizzie!" called Chloe, and she leapt up from where she had been clearing weeds from around the grave, raced down the slope after her giggling little sister.

Beth turned to watch them, her two wonderful girls, shining beacon-like through the dim sorrow that had hung about their family these past three years. Mark was gone—not in an absolute way, of course. But his occasional visits, although bright with presents for his precious daughters and long mid-afternoon walks on the beach, filled Beth with a quiet melancholy. The place inside her heart where Mark had been was slowly healing; raw still, and impossible to fill entirely. Yet it would stop aching one day, unlike the agonising void that Danny had once occupied, which would never diminish, which only gaped wider the longer she dared to look at it. Beth had just gotten very, very good at focusing her attention instead on the parts of her being that were still whole and bursting with love for her living children.

She turned once more towards the church, hands in the pockets of her coat, eyes drifting upwards to the tower against the murky grey sky. The doors were locked shut, would be until there was a new vicar to keep things running. Beth wasn't sure if that would ever happen, though. When she had hesitantly expressed concern to Ellie, Ellie had given her a confused little frown and reminded Beth that she wasn't religious. "I know," Beth responded, "but don't you think something will be missing, if we can't even take the kids to church on Easter and Christmas?" and Ellie merely shrugged. Maggie was just as little help. "I appreciate that you think I'm qualified to be on a search committee, petal," she had laughed, "but I'm fairly certain most people would argue that there's a special circle of hell for meddling journalists like myself." _Paul wouldn't_ , Beth had thought, but even as she did so, she knew that there was the problem, what was truly missing in her existence. Not the church for holidays; there was the church in Weymouth, after all, for the truly devout. Nor a venue for weekly town gatherings, because those wouldn't exist even if the church were still operational; weekend football on the beach was just as convenient a way to run into friends and neighbours, these days.

Slowly, Beth stepped away from Danny's grave, moved up the slope towards the church. She laid her hand against the grain of the door and breathed in. There was a third space within her, one that she chose not to examine just as steadfastly as she chose not to remember the pain of her son's death. Danny's loss was an absolute; Mark's a reversible but necessary choice. The emptiness that Beth felt for Paul Coates was entirely different, because the root from which it stemmed had never _been_. She averted her gaze not because the void overwhelmed her with anger or grief, but because it was like staring into the sun, so bright it was with unrealised possibilities. Dazzling visions of a better life, things that existed in fantasies alone.

And yet. She still had her memories, didn't she? Of Paul sitting with her in the back of her dinged van in the car park of the supermarket, quietly counselling her through the immediate aftermath of the crisis and through her doubts and fears about bringing another child into this irrational world. Of Paul offering comfort to their family, no matter if Mark wasn't gracious enough to receive it. Of Paul supporting her through the fallout of her stupid husband's affair with Becca Fisher. Of Paul urging her to turn her anguish into action to help others. Of Paul sitting with her in his church as she raged at him about Mark's childishness and selfishness, even as he urged her to keep faith in her love for Mark. Had she imagined the softness in his eyes whenever he looked at her, even at the height of his ill-advised relationship with that damn woman? Reverend Paul Coates, as a servant of the divine, always seemed to know the right words to deliver in a moment of need. Was it possible that the vicar was less sure what to say when speaking as a mere man? Was it possible that things might have ended differently, if she had not already been married to Mark, whom she loved but no longer understood; if he had not felt he had a professional duty to encourage the Latimers' marriage to hold together?

Beth's fingernails scraped gently against the wood of the church door, knowing that the man she so desperately wanted to see in this moment would not be inside even if the door miraculously creaked open. She imagined the inside of the church, sunlight streaming through the windows, illuminating the air with bright shimmers of dust that would swirl to settle on the pews and the hymnals and the faded rainbow streamers that Paul had draped from his pulpit. The church would feel more like a museum than like a house of God, without Paul's mugs and tea kettle at the ready to make visitors a cuppa, or his acoustic guitar leaning against the wall of his office for the occasional hymn sing-along. Beth tried to remember where he was now—she knew that someone had told her (Mark? Maggie?). Somewhere far away, forging ahead with his own life. Keeping the faith that he had urged the Broadchurch community to find when the unimaginable had occurred.

Beth wondered if he ever thought of her.

"Mum, it'll start raining soon!" Chloe shouted across the graveyard. "What're you doing, anyway? It's been locked for months!"

And just like that, the trance was broken. Beth, shaking herself, found herself back in the solid, real world of a gusty churchyard, her daughters tromping up the side of the hill to meet her, hand in hand. She turned from the church, walked back down the path away from the door, and picked Lizzie up with an _oof_ (she kept forgetting that her baby now was too heavy to be carried for long stretches of time).

"Best get back to the car as quickly as possible, then," she said. Chloe rested a hand on top of Danny's tombstone in a silent farewell before nodding.

The rain began to fall as the Latimer family made their way down the hill, cold pinpricks of water, more gentle than piercing. A stormy baptism, Beth mused as she strapped Lizzie into her child car seat. A reminder that the sky needs to weep before flowers can grow. Beth could not change the fact of Danny's death; she did not want to bring Mark back into his former role in her life. But she still had Paul's number programmed into her mobile, untouched in the months since his departure from Broadchurch. That much power to set things right was Beth's to wield. Perhaps it was madness to hope that what might have been could still be, but Beth was willing to put her faith in Paul's love as fervently he put his faith in God's. The rain dripped cold from the end of her nose, and Beth brushed her hand across her face as she climbed into the car.

"Everything all right?" Chloe asked as Beth turned the ignition and put the car into gear.

"Yeah," Beth said, and she took a moment to smile at her darling girl before turning out of the parking lot. "Everything's all right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I totally acknowledge that this feels like the first chapter of a longer fic, and I may eventually get around to writing more of it, but since my real life is going to be busy in the near future, I'm putting a pin in it for now and letting this stand alone as a character study.


	2. Chapter 2

Paul moved to Canterbury to reconnect with the conviction that he was meant to serve God. It only made sense to him, to reconfirm his vocation at the very seat of the Church of England. He made the decision with every intention of dedicating himself all the more to his studies of Scripture, of attending Evensong every evening at the Cathedral, of reaffirming the vitality of his choice to dedicate his life in service to the Church.

Instead, Paul moved to Canterbury and discovered cycling.

What Paul had forgotten about living in a proper city, even a city as small as Canterbury, was how easy it was to become anonymous. In Broadchurch, even the people he didn't know personally still knew him as the town vicar. He'd had a defined status, and people had relied on him—yes, he acknowledged, even when it wasn't in a religious capacity, everyone from Mark and Beth Latimer to Maggie Radcliffe to Joe Miller himself sought Paul out for sympathy and a kind word. They had flocked to him, and he had comforted his flock even as they denied that they were sheep. Here in Canterbury, by contrast, Paul could be whomever he wanted to be. He slowly but surely made acquaintances and friends (the young couple who lived next door, the friendly barista at his local café, one of the theology professors at the University). But for reasons he could not understand, Paul did not immediately introduce himself as a vicar. It wasn't that he felt he should hide it; when the fact naturally arose in conversation, he declared it with pride. Yet Paul was slowly learning to negotiate the interplay between his personal faith and the new anonymity of his public role. In Kent, he relied on no one, and no one relied on him. Paul found it both refreshing and deeply lonely.

Figuring out his new place in society was overwhelming, and so, to distract himself, Paul bought a used bicycle off of Gumtree from a wiry old man with an easy smile and a new hip replacement. The bike, although nearly as old as Paul himself, was maintained in peak condition—new chain, lubricated cables, freshly packed headset bearings, gently worn gears. The old man ran his hand lovingly over the handlebars as Paul counted out the promised sum.

"Lugged steel frame, this has," he explained to the vicar, who patiently listened. "See how the tubes are brazed together? Strongest frame you'll find. People go for all the shiny new construction these days, of course—all this aluminium and carbon-fibre nonsense. I tell you, though, nothing will recover like steel. Crash one of those carbon-fibre bikes, and if the tube cracks, well, tough luck. Steel, though? Steel can be bent back into shape, even if it takes a hard wallop. It's resilient like that, you see?"

The bike was a beautiful deep forest green. The hue reminded Paul of a coat that Beth Latimer used to wear. He nodded and thanked the old man. Riding back home on his new acquisition, Paul felt weightless and free as if he'd just bought himself a new pair of wings.

Paul spent his weekdays immersed in his faith, and his weekends zooming about the Kentish countryside on his new bike. Out in the open, surrounded by the quiet susurrus of insects in the fields and hedges, pumping his way past quaintly peaked oasts and timber-framed houses, Paul's loneliness slipped away. If he was anonymous while he coasted between the Cinque Ports, it was because no one was around to recognise him or not. He let himself enjoy the almost meditative state of simply moving through space. He relished the freedom of merely existing out in the world: himself, and the fields around him, and God in everything—and, of course, his dependable, resilient bike that gleamed the same colour as Beth Latimer's coat.

Once or twice, Paul was daring enough to ride all the way out to Dover. It was nothing at all like Broadchurch, of course, what with its enormous ferries drifting to and from the city, and its pebbly beaches, and the general faster pace of life. Still, Paul spent afternoons wandering along the shore, craning upwards at the looming faces of the chalky cliffs. Reflecting on how lucky he was to have been able to turn over a new page. Reflecting on how much he wished that leaving hadn't been necessary in the first place.

Paul still prayed for Beth Latimer and her girls, every night—Beth Latimer, who had sprung back from the hardest hit of all and forged ahead with her life, filled with steely resolve. He took those few moments every evening to thank God for giving Beth the strength that she needed; he asked Him to help the Latimers continue to heal from the unthinkable; and he prayed for little Danny's soul. (Mark, Paul placed into a different mental category altogether. He still prayed for Mark every night, too, but it was prayer of a much more desperate sort, of salvage rather than of maintenance.)

About four months after his move from Broadchurch, Paul biked down to Reculver on a sunny but windy Saturday afternoon. He had been on a date the night before; not a bad one either, all things considered. The woman (from an app) had been very outgoing, and when Paul had asked if she wouldn't mind going to the cinema instead of getting a drink, she had happily agreed to the plan without asking any questions. The film itself had been unremarkable, but it had been a long time since Paul had spent a film holding someone's hand. He hadn't quite dared to kiss her when they parted ways that evening, but she had seemed keen to meet again. Paul sat in the shade of the remaining towers of St Mary's Church, sipping from his water bottle, letting the wind dry the sweat from his shirt as he thought things over. It was possible, then, that he was ready to move on.

Yet even as Paul leaned back against the stone walls of the ruined church, decided on this course of action, he heard his mobile ring. When he picked it up and saw who was calling, his heart stammered in his chest.

"Hello?"

"Oh, Paul!" A flustered laugh escaped from Beth. "Sorry, didn't expect you to pick up, for some reason. Thought I'd leave you a message."

"I can hang up and let you call again, if you'd prefer?" Paul meant it half-jokingly, half-seriously; sometimes, in his experience, his parishioners preferred to explain their problems without him listening in real time.

"No, no." Beth cleared her throat. "Er, is this a good moment for you?"

"Yes! Yes, of course." Paul squinted out into the distance, over the glittering sea. "What's going on? Everything all right?"

"Yeah." Paul could imagine the small, hesitant smile spreading across Beth's face. "Yeah, funnily enough. We're all good."

"I can't tell you how glad that makes me."

"Thanks." Beth hesitated. "You know, they still haven't found a new vicar for the church here."

"Ah." Paul wasn't all that surprised, not given the way church attendance had been trending during the last few years of his tenure. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"You're very missed, Paul," Beth said softly. "I hope you realise just how much."

Paul said nothing for a long moment, merely stared out across the water. If he squinted just right, it was possible to make out the spinning arms of wind turbines in the distance, through the glint of the sun on the sea. His head felt as if it was whirring just as frantically.

"Thank you," he replied at last. "That means quite a lot to me."

"How have you been?" Beth asked.

"Oh, fine. Settling into life in Canterbury, keeping busy. I doubt you'll have any reason to be in Kent anytime soon, but if you are, let me know?"

"I will, of course. And please, come by if you're in Broadchurch?"

And to hear Beth Latimer say the name of her town brought it all rushing back to Paul—how much he missed Broadchurch, its houses rambling up and down the slopes of the grassy hills near the shore, boats moored in the little harbour, the faces of all the people he had grown to love despite their all-too-human failings, even the tourists flooding in from late May through the summer, to wander the beaches and meander through the shops on the High Street. Kent was beautiful; Kent was freedom. But Paul realised that within that freedom, he had lost something. Too much space and too little responsibility had been exhilarating at first, but Paul was untethered, adrift. He needed something to anchor him, if he was going to relocate the purpose that he had come to Canterbury to find. Was it possible that that purpose was back in Broadchurch, after all—back with Beth?

"Of course," he promised, his mouth dry. "Do stay in touch, though?"

"I will." Paul could hear Beth's smile through her voice. "It's good to hear your voice, Paul. Take care."

Paul closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the old church walls. He had tread so carefully around the Latimers' marriage when he was still their vicar, urging them to uphold the vow they had taken before God, willing himself to stop coveting his neighbour's wife. Paul had spoken with Mark all too recently, knew that the Latimers were now formally separated. But he also knew how hurt Mark would be if someone—especially someone whom Mark trusted—made any move towards filling his old place in the Latimer family's lives.

Still. If Beth still wanted to remain in contact, it didn't mean that Paul would have to betray anyone who had relied on him. Beth was his friend, after all. There was nothing wrong with visiting with a friend.

Standing and stretching, Paul turned and looked up at the church towers, jutting unapologetically from the earth, their erstwhile church destroyed by the foolishness of humans. And yet they had taken on a grandeur and significance of their own, despite their broken isolation, redefined their own purpose beyond the absence. There was still something of God about the ruins, Paul decided. But he could not spend much time contemplating this revelation, not when the sun set so early in mid-October. Picking his water bottle and his trusty bicycle off the grass, Paul made his way to the car park and started back towards Canterbury, his mind drifting between thoughts of Beth and Broadchurch and the slightly unnerving sense that he was not truly cycling towards home.


	3. Chapter 3

As November turned grey and gloomy, Paul began to feel increasingly cloistered in Canterbury. Gusty days filled with intermittent rain made cycling impossible some weekends, and he found himself prowling restlessly about his flat, willing himself to be patient and getting nowhere. More often than he wanted to admit, he found his thoughts drifting to the coastline, imagining exactly how this same steel-coloured rain (beating mercilessly down onto the surface of the weedy Stour) would sweep across the cliffs of Broadchurch, leaving the grass perilously slippery, the eroding rock in danger of crumbling onto the sand below.

On impulse, he booked a return trip by train to Broadchurch for two weekends out. He began counting down the days, silently, the way he usually guiltily counted down the days until the end of Lent. The nice woman with whom he had gone on that date to the cinema left two messages on his mobile, and Paul failed to follow up—not out of active disinterest, but more simply because he kept forgetting to do so.

Finally, a few days before his trip, Paul remembered that he should probably let _some_ people know that he would be back for the weekend. He checked the candidates off in his head. Mark Latimer wasn't based in the area anymore. Liz Roper was buried near her grandson in the graveyard of his former church. Ellie Miller always avoided him because she felt guilty about not bringing her kids to services more often than just Easter and Christmas. Tom Miller still moodily refused to make eye contact with Paul, anyway, due to various electronics-related mishaps over the years. Alec Hardy, Paul himself avoided because he _still_ felt that the curmudgeonly police officer harboured unfounded suspicions about him, for one reason or another. Becca Fisher had left town years earlier, and Paul was interested to find that the immediate sting of that torpedoed relationship had disappeared long ago.

The list of people whom he missed in Broadchurch was much shorter than Paul had realised. It probably said something about his life in Canterbury that he was still anxious to escape to Dorset, in spite of it all. Paul stubbornly ignored whatever message this revelation should have delivered.

That left only one person Paul actively wanted to see in Broadchurch, besides Beth Latimer. With a sigh, he put his mobile to his ear and listened to the line ring through.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Maggie."

"Paul!" Paul hated the way his throat had just seized up to hear the excitement in the journalist's voice—he really wasn't _that_ lonely in Kent, why was he reacting this way just to be speaking to an old friend? "Good gracious, thought you'd dropped off the face of the planet! How _are_ you? How's Canterbury?"

"It's fine," replied Paul weakly. "Listen, I actually wanted to let you know that I'll be in Broadchurch this weekend..."

"Well, why didn't you let me know sooner? I hope you're ringing to say that you'll have time for a cuppa while you're here? My diary's extremely flexible these days, so just let me know when you're free. Oh, although you're more than welcome to stay at ours, if you haven't already booked a room for the weekend?"

"I..." Paul suddenly remembered that he in fact _hadn't_ booked a room at the Traders Hotel, like he'd planned; every time he meant to, he thought about Becca, and then about how he should probably return the messages from that nice woman, and so his thoughts went chasing themselves in circles and his concentration on the task at hand was completely lost. "Well, that's very kind of you..."

"So that's a yes?" Paul could practically hear Maggie's smile through the phone.

"Er, are you sure Jocelyn won't mind?" he asked. Paul thought it would be rude to admit to Maggie that Jocelyn still intimidated him. He would always invariably envision the barrister inside a courtroom, wigged and robed, no matter how many times he'd seen her in normal clothes, walking hand-in-hand with Maggie along the beach.

"Jocelyn!" roared Maggie over her shoulder. "Mind if Paul Coates stays in the guest room over the weekend? _Yes_ , the vicar, what other Paul Coates do we know? No trouble at all, petal," she responded to Paul, once Jocelyn had presumably given her assent. "I'll give you the spare key when you arrive, so you can come and go as you like. Are you driving? Need a ride from the train station? And I imagine you have plans to visit other friends, but I do hope we'll have some time to catch up, maybe take a walk along the cliffs and see how the brave new world's been treating us both?"

So there was one solid reason for visiting Broadchurch again. Paul told himself that he would call Beth Latimer next, after he gave himself a bit of time to think of what he wanted to say. But that bit of time turned into the next day, and then into the day after that; and all too soon, Paul found himself on a train to London, a very small suitcase at his feet, wondering what on earth he was really doing. He turned his mobile over in his hands, urging himself to even text Beth, but putting it off just a little longer.

Maggie was waiting for him in the car park of the Broadchurch train station.

"Thanks for making the time to pick me up," Paul said as they turned onto the familiar little streets of the town, lined with their shops and cafés.

"No trouble at all," Maggie reassured him. "Really, it's so good to see you again. You've been missed."

Paul thought about how Beth Latimer had given him the same reassurance. He somehow hadn't texted her at any point during his train ride from London to Broadchurch, either.

"Have I?" he said quietly.

"Oh, just listen to me," Maggie scoffed. "Only a few months out of the journalism industry proper, and slipping into passive voice already. Yes, petal, _we_ have missed you. I've missed you, obviously. Beth Latimer, god knows, certainly misses you... hasn't she reached out to say hello? She mentioned that she was going to."

"She did." Paul's stomach fluttered slightly at the thought that Beth had mentioned to someone else that she missed him. "She said that they haven't found a new vicar for the church yet."

"They haven't," Maggie admitted.

"Are they even trying?"

"Some people are."

"But it's not a priority."

"Paul," sighed Maggie, "I'm sorry that the community let you down in terms of its faith. But can't it be enough that we miss you as yourself?"

Paul decided not to remind her that, as a vicar, his faith _was_ himself. Instead, he sat back and enjoyed the familiar sights of Broadchurch moving past his window, as Maggie filled him in on a not-insubstantial portion of the town gossip that he'd missed over the past four months.

"Here we are," Maggie sighed, unlocking the door of her house as Paul admired the view of the ocean. "Oh, for pity's sake, I asked Jocelyn to move all of these binders off of the table before she had to get on a call that's supposed to last most of the afternoon, and that clearly hasn't happened... sorry the place is such a mess."

"It's lovely," said Paul, a bit afraid to know what the typical standard of tidiness was, if this was considered messy.

"Spare key," added Maggie, handing the item in question over to Paul, "and the guest room is just down the hallway, should be towels laid out on the pillow for you..."

Paul set his suitcase down in the guest room and sat down on the edge of the bed. He pulled out his phone once more, typed a quick text to Beth, and hit the send button before he could talk himself out of it.

The answer came almost immediately.

_So glad to hear that you're back for the weekend. Lizzie and I are going to the beach in about half an hour, before it gets dark, if you want to join?_

Paul exhaled in a short puff of air. Incredible, that he should have agonised for days over what to say, and Beth Latimer could so effortlessly send a message back in less than two minutes.

"Will you think me horribly rude if I head out right now?" he asked Maggie.

"Not at all," she replied, halfway up the stairs with a stack of binders in her arms. "Just let me know if you'll be back for dinner, so we'll know to set a place for you."

Paul wandered outside and slowly made his way down the grassy slope of the cliff, squinting his eyes against the glint of sun off the ocean. Broadchurch lay scattered at the slope's foot, miniature cars trundling down miniature streets. A sort of elusive longing billowed up within Paul's chest, of feeling that his beloved town was within arm's reach and yet still lay too far away, of feeling that he would always belong even as he knew that he no longer did. He set off down the slope with the bittersweet sensation that, even walking through the streets themselves, the town might continue to feel just as remote.

And yet, as he slowly made his way through the streets and towards the beach, Paul was pleasantly surprised to find that the faces that used to populate his old life _did_ still recognise him—Sue from the bakery asked how he'd been and slipped him a free croissant with a cheerful wink; Dave, who had sought out Paul after his wife died of cancer, chatted with him for five minutes when they bumped into each other on the street; Gemma, who had been in the IT club with Tom Miller and (Paul realised with a pang) with Danny Latimer, waved at him from down the street. In fact, to his quiet relief, these small encounters took up so much time in the aggregate that Paul got to the beach a few minutes late, when he had been worried that he would arrive uncomfortably early.

He saw Lizzie first, running across the sand after a seagull and giggling in glee. Beth stood nearby, her watchful gaze on her daughter, and Paul admired the figure that she cut against the seascape, solitary but unyielding. Somehow, she seemed to sense Paul's arrival before he turned around, even though the wind and the sand together were enough to muffle any footsteps.

"So you made it," Beth said as Paul reached her. She did not turn around to greet him—not when that would mean looking away from her child on the beach—but when Paul finally was level with her and could see her face, he saw that she was smiling.

"Sorry I'm a little later than expected."

"Don't be." And Beth pulled her eyes from Lizzie for a moment to take in Paul for a moment, windswept and a bit worn from hours of travel, his hands shoved into his pockets against the chill of late autumn. "I'm just glad that you're here. How are you?"

Beth was wearing her forest-green coat. For an insane moment, Paul wanted to tell her that he had gone on dozens of weekend adventures with a bicycle that reminded him of her resilient personality. But Paul thankfully recognised before he opened his mouth how incredibly stupid that would sound, and he instead opted for a simple, "Well enough. You?"

"Same." Beth turned her attention back towards the water. "Not a whole lot's changed for us since you left. Although Chlo's moved out. She's working, taking a few classes. Wants to apply to uni next year."

"You must be really proud of her."

"Yeah." Beth shrugged. "It's just strange, you know? That my little girl is suddenly a full-grown woman, off living her own life, taking care of herself. I'd feel useless, if not for Lizzie."

"I'm sure you don't mean that," Paul said gently. "How's your work?"

"Difficult," said Beth with a sigh. "Everyone keeps telling me that I'm doing a really, really good job. But it's hard, having to absorb other people's pain like that." She glanced at him. "It really makes me appreciate what you did for us, even more than I already did. How did you hold yourself together, living with everyone else's problems like you did?"

"Faith, I guess," Paul shrugged.

He studied her profile for a moment—Beth, whose pretty face was sombre with watchfulness, all too aware of how quickly fate could sweep away another of her precious children. He wanted to gently smooth out the furrow between her eyebrows with his thumb, ease the tension in her shoulders with the tips of his fingers, watch her face relax into a smile.

"Look, I know that plenty of people have told you that you have a real gift for working with these survivors," he said instead. "And I'd be the first to agree with them. You're making life so much more bearable for these women, Beth. But, at the same time, you have to take care of yourself, before you can take care of anyone else. Take a step back, if you need to. No one will blame you for it, if it's what you need to protect yourself."

"Is that what you did, Paul?" asked Beth quietly. "Took a step back from all of us?"

Paul didn't answer her. Beth shot him a weary smile.

"How's Canterbury?" she asked.

Paul opened his mouth to respond with the typical bland platitudes, but instead he sighed, "God, Beth, I don't know what I'm doing with my life."

He regretted it the moment the too-candid words were out of his mouth, and he turned away from her slightly, embarrassed. But Beth reached out and gently touched his arm, and he looked back at her, overwhelmed by the concern in her eyes.

"Tell me," she said.

And so Paul did. He told her about the monotony of his day-to-day life in Kent, about Evensongs at the Cathedral that somehow rang hollow to him, about his few acquaintances around town, about rain on the surface of the Stour. He told her about his weekend bike rides, and about how they somehow were the only thing that reminded him of God's presence everywhere. He told her about his trips to the coast and let her infer what she would about his unspoken efforts to recapture Broadchurch in each Kentish seaside town he visited. And Beth listened, patiently, without judgement, letting Paul put into words emotions and fears that he hadn't even realised he was harbouring.

"Do you regret leaving?" she asked him. They had long since retreated from the beach to her house, Lizzie meandering ahead of them in the fading light. The little girl was now dozing on the sofa, worn out from cavorting on the beach, and Paul sat across from Beth at the dining room table, cradling a mug of tea between his hands.

"I don't know," he said quietly. "I don't think I've found what I needed to find, in Canterbury. But I don't think I would have found it, if I'd stayed here."

"How do you know that?" she asked him, more curious than accusatory.

"Because you didn't _need_ me anymore," he said, as if that should have been obvious. "Professionally, I was stagnating. Maybe Canterbury's not where I'm supposed to be right now, but if I keep searching, maybe _somewhere_ , I'll find a parish that really needs me..."

Paul stopped as Beth reached out and laid a hand on his.

"We never stopped needing you," she said softly. "I know some people here might not realise that. But we've always needed you. We still do."

Paul's mouth had gone dry.

"As a vicar?" he half-croaked. "Or as a person?"

"Both," said Beth with a small smile.

For a curious moment, time seemed suspended. Beth's fingers pressed warmth into the back of Paul's hand, the ceramic of his mug a little too hot against his palm. And Paul believed her, in spite of himself—believed that, in the world as defined by Beth Latimer, he was very much needed.

"I should go," he said quietly, his heart beating far too fast.

Beth's smile faltered just a touch, but she stood and quietly walked him to the front door.

"You're leaving tomorrow?" she asked, and when he nodded, she said, "Come back, Paul."

Beth was one of the toughest people Paul knew, and yet she looked so vulnerable, leaning against her doorframe, looking up at him with those beautiful eyes of hers.

"When?" he breathed.

"Tomorrow morning, next week, next month, whenever." Beth moved her shoulder up and then down in the slightest of shrugs. "Just, promise that you'll come back. Don't give up on us just yet."

And, when Paul continued to gaze at her, Beth stepped forward and tentatively raised her face to his, and she kissed him, soft and bittersweet, her arms twining around his neck. She pulled away, waiting for him to react, and he let out a barely audible sigh.

"Beth," he whispered, and then he gently disentangled himself from her embrace. "Take care of yourself."

Paul didn't look back as he walked away from Beth's house, but he could feel her eyes following him until he turned the corner and was lost from view. His mind was whirling too fast for him to be able to sort out his emotions; the darkness of the streets around him was a welcome blanket beneath which he could leave his current turmoil unexamined for just a little longer. Paul knew that some might consider him a coward, for leaving instead of staying and confronting what he actually wanted. But Beth had granted him time to figure things out. She had told him to come back, and once Paul had taken some time to think, he would.


	4. Chapter 4

Beth watched Paul until he was lost from view, and then she shut her door against the night outside and sat down on the sofa next to Lizzie, listening to her heart patter at twice its normal tempo.

She had just kissed Paul Coates.

Oh, god, what was she _thinking_.

Beth sighed and pulled out her phone. _Can you come over after I've put Lizzie to bed?_ she texted Ellie. One downside to Chloe having moved out was that Beth could no longer ask her to look after her sister, and then wander out to the field to have a quick word in private with Ellie. Beth was halfway through convincing Lizzie to eat dinner when Ellie replied in the affirmative, and about ten minutes after she tucked her daughter in, she heard a knock on the door.

"Hi," grinned Ellie. She had put on that ridiculous orange North Face as a shield against the chill, and Beth was reminded once again of why Ellie Miller was one of those friends whom she could tell more or less anything without fear of being judged. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah," said Beth after a slight pause. "Thanks for coming over." She pushed the door open. "Want any chocolate, by the way? Was just thinking of making some."

While Beth bustled about the kitchen, Ellie sprawled on the sofa, ranting about the latest video game that Tom kept playing in front of Fred ("It _used_ to be FIFA, and that was stupid but fine; but _now_ there are things blowing up right and left, and frighteningly realistic women with barely any clothes on; and I wish he'd just go back to playing bloody FIFA again, because I'll take stupid-but-fine fake football over whatever load of utter horse shit _this_ is!"). When Beth pressed a mug into Ellie's hands, though, the irked police officer stopped ranting for a moment to take a sip of chocolate, and this alone seemed to mollify her just a bit. Beth suppressed a laugh. Ellie was so wonderfully predictable in some ways, and her enjoyment of good food and drink was a welcome constant in a world that otherwise spun in dizzying circles around Beth.

"I hope you haven't put a hammer through the television screen?" she said.

"If I had five quid for every time the thought's gone through my head, I might have done it already and bought myself an upgrade," grumbled Ellie. "Anyway, enough about Tom's continuing lack of judgement. Something on your mind?"

Beth sighed and leaned back with her own mug of chocolate.

"You don't have to answer this, but have you tried moving on much, since everything happened?" she asked Ellie. "With men, I mean."

"Ergh." Ellie made a face. "Well, I asked out Brian from work once, and thankfully he said no, that probably would have been a disaster with a lot of lingering embarrassment. And I've gone on a few dates with men from online, but those have all been incredibly boring. Oh, and have I somehow never mentioned the time I shagged a complete stranger who picked me up at a pub?"

"You didn't!" gasped Beth with a grin, impressed by Ellie's boldness.

"I do _not_ recommend it," Ellie added. "Really don't think it's worth potentially enduring such a lackluster performance. Anyway, that's been the extent of my love life, these past three years. Thankfully, I've had the combined chaos of the kids and everything at work to keep me from brooding over it too much."

Beth nodded. It had been nearly half a year since she had first met Trish Winterman, but the communal trauma of her case still hung heavy over the entire town. Beth wasn't sure if it would ever fully lift, the way that Danny's death never would. Her eyes unconsciously drifted to one of the photographs of her darling boy on the bookshelf.

"So, are you thinking of trying to put yourself back in the game, now that you're officially separated?" Ellie asked. "Cheeky date or two? If you need me to look after Lizzie any evening, say the word..."

"I just kissed Paul Coates," muttered Beth.

Ellie's jaw dropped.

"No! The _vicar_ , Paul Coates?" she clarified, excited. "Wait, does he even _live_ here anymore?"

"He's visiting for the weekend," Beth explained. "Met up with me and Lizzie for a walk along the beach."

"And?" Ellie, being off-duty at the moment, clearly was much less interested in the context of the whole situation than she ever would be in her professional capacity.

Beth shrugged.

"I don't know," she said honestly. "I think about him all the time, Ellie. I miss him. More than I miss Mark. Sometimes—sometimes even more than I miss Danny, because I can't ever get Danny back, after all."

Ellie's dark eyes, sparkling with mischief a moment before, grew soft with sympathy.

"But that's the thing," Beth continued. "We used to talk all the time, me and Paul, after Danny. He was there for me when it seemed like no one else was. He made me feel safe, you know? Like even when Mark was being unpredictable and secretive, Paul would be there to talk me through things, remind me that I wasn't alone. I keep wondering, will I ever be able to separate my feelings for him from my memories of that time? And, if I can, will it really be _him_ that I want, or just that sense of safety back again?"

"Guess there's only one way to find out," Ellie responded after a moment of digesting all of this new information. "Do you know how he feels about you?"

"There are moments..." Beth paused and reconsidered. "I don't _think_ I'm imagining them, at least. I'll catch him watching me, and there's something in the way he looks at me that makes me feel the way I felt when I first met Mark. But he always looks away, whenever he sees me watching him back. And he's never said anything outright."

"Yeah, well, men are shit when it comes to communicating their emotions," Ellie opined, taking another sip of chocolate. "Take my boss, for example. I'm positive that he'd take a bullet for me, if it came to it, but does he _ever_ remember to say 'thank you' when I bring back takeaway to the station for him, or drive him somewhere entirely out of my way, or even make him a bloody cup of tea? Of _course_ he doesn't. Knob," she added fondly.

"Anyway, what do you think I should do?" Beth asked. "I've still never been with anyone other than Mark, I don't _remember_ how to navigate new relationships, or even start them."

"Well, you kissed him, didn't you? That's definitely a start. And I presume he didn't run away screaming after you did?"

"He did leave right after," Beth admitted.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Ellie told her. "First boy I ever kissed refused to look at me for the next three days, and then we somehow ended up dating for the rest of the school year. He's probably just as flustered as you are, right now, but that doesn't mean he's flustered in a _bad_ way. You going to see him again, before he leaves?"

"I don't know. But I did tell him to come back."

"Look at you!" Ellie looked as impressed as Beth had been at the whole concept of being picked up by a stranger at a pub. "That's a message he definitely can't misinterpret. If I were you, I'd give him a little time to follow up, and then send him a reminder or two. If he chooses to ignore you, that's his loss."

"You'd tell me, though, if you thought this all was a terrible idea?" Beth asked anxiously.

"Beth, do you know me at all?" Ellie considered her friend. "I really do think you should give it a go, if he's willing to meet you halfway. You don't smile anymore when you talk about Mark. Even when you talk about your girls, you always get this slightly worried look on your face. But watching you talk about Paul Coates? It was like seeing a glimpse of the Beth from before, who didn't have a care in the world. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed that. And I'm sure I'm far from the only person in Broadchurch who'd be relieved to see you smiling again."

* * *

Paul wandered the darkened streets of Broadchurch for a long time after he left Beth on her doorstep, unable to focus his mind on anything for long, vaguely admiring how everything was exactly as he'd left it. He was halfway up the hill to his church before he remembered that it was no longer his church and stopped, and that was when he bothered checking his mobile. Maggie had sent him a message saying that he'd missed dinner but was more than welcome to anything in the refrigerator, and since it was late enough that most places in town had shut for the evening already, Paul meandered back to the house on the cliffs and went to bed early, even though it took him hours to fall asleep.

He _had_ promised Maggie that they'd catch up before his train back, though, so Paul dragged himself out of bed at a reasonable hour and was rewarded with an enormous late breakfast of eggs and sausage and baked beans and tomatoes and toast with jam.

"Does she always make elaborate brunches like this on Sundays?" he muttered to Jocelyn.

"Only if something's made her especially happy," Jocelyn informed him with a smile over the top of _The Guardian_ (Maggie was boycotting _The Echo_ out of well-founded spite).

Given how embarrassingly open he had been with Beth the previous evening, Paul was much more guarded today in discussing his feelings about his current life. A stroll along the cliffs provided plenty of excuses for stopping and taking in the view, whenever Paul didn't want to answer something. But Maggie—ever the journalist—was very persistent about trying to wheedle him into divulging more, and she was able to read between the lines all too easily.

"Can I be perfectly honest with you, Paul?" Maggie said finally. "And I apologise for being so blunt, but it doesn't sound like you're very happy."

"I'm not _un_ happy," Paul argued, doubting himself.

"Well, that's what I mean. When most people choose to relocate, they're either being pulled towards something new, or pushed away from something they're trying to leave behind. And maybe the things you wanted from Canterbury just haven't come within grasp yet, or maybe we here in Broadchurch were an even greater disappointment to you than I'd realised. But you sound very _neutral_ about things at present. It doesn't sound like you moved to Canterbury because you were being pushed _or_ pulled—more like it just _happened_ to you, and you've been completely detached from the whole experience."

Paul had to acknowledge that 'neutral' was the perfect way to describe how he felt about Canterbury. Unlike Broadchurch, which he still intensely loved, which he still somewhat resented for all of those years of watching his purpose in the town slowly ebb away.

"So you think I should move again?" he asked.

"I think you need to find something to really ground you, while you figure out everything else." Maggie shrugged. "Believe me, it's not like I don't know the feeling of spinning in circles for months, trying to work out a new purpose in life. There are still mornings where I'll be halfway out the door before I remember that I don't work at _The Echo_ anymore. And god, do I miss just walking into a proper newsroom every morning! But at least while I've been recalibrating, I've been able to prop myself up with things that provide some stability to my life—Jocelyn, my friends, my community. The fact that my reporting still is good enough that apparently a number of people have started relying on my blog for their morning news instead of _The Echo_... should probably look into bringing on advertising to monetise the clicks, come to think of it..."

A seagull drifted by at eye level, and Paul watched it glide off towards the town. His faith was supposed to be the force grounding him in this moment. It frightened him to contemplate that it alone might not be enough.

"I do miss it here," he admitted. "I hadn't realised just how much time and effort it takes to become part of a new community. Even yesterday, just saying hello to familiar faces in the streets..."

"Oh, am I allowed to ask who you visited with yesterday? Completely off the record, of course," Maggie winked. "Sounds like you had quite the full diary, given how late you were out?"

Paul paused, and then decided that there was no point to withholding the truth.

"Not a full diary," he said quietly. "Just Beth."

Maggie waited for more, but Paul left things at that. Fortunately, though, the journalist had seen and heard enough from Beth to be able to put all of her sources' information together and piece together a logical enough narrative.

"You know, Jocelyn and I have been in love for nearly two decades now," she said after a moment.

Paul blinked, because _that_ certainly seemed like faulty addition—the trial was only three years ago, and what about that woman whom Maggie was dating when he'd arrived in Broadchurch...?

" _Not_ that we were together for most of that time," Maggie clarified. "Thanks to a lot of stupidity on both our parts. I felt like I made my interest perfectly clear, when we first met; but I wasn't about to press the matter if she was going to keep backing away, and she in fact outright refused to acknowledge any signals that I was sending. Too concerned about the impact it might have on her career; too concerned about distractions; we weren't even located in the same place back then... anyway. It didn't change how either of us felt, but we both quietly accepted that we weren't going to discuss anything, and we tried to move on with our lives. I think we both would even have said that we were happy, orbiting in our own little spheres, even though we were living with this huge, unspoken regret."

"What changed?" Paul asked.

"She moved back to Broadchurch, which helped," Maggie shrugged. "But more importantly, and to her great credit, she had the courage to initiate the conversation that we should have had fifteen years earlier. Ironic, isn't it, that a journalist and a barrister should have been so reluctant to just use their words. I couldn't be more grateful for what we have now, but it's hard not to feel frustrated about all of the time that we wasted. We could have dispelled that regret and been this happy so much sooner, if only we hadn't been waiting for each other to make the first move."

She looked pointedly at Paul, who continued to look pointedly out towards the horizon.

"Well, if you take nothing else away from all of this, promise me that you'll stop living in the passive voice," Maggie said finally. "No more just letting things happen _to_ you, Paul. Life isn't going to turn out the way you want it, until you start acting on the verbs yourself. Take it from someone who knows."

Paul smiled, in spite of himself. He knew that Maggie was right, and he supposed he owed it to himself to sit down and decide what he was really pursuing or avoiding, after all; it was the only way to stop merely existing and start actually _living_ again. He glanced at Maggie, who had just checked the time on her mobile and was scowling at how late it was. And perhaps it was just the sea breeze and the winter sunlight and the sweeping cliffs, but Paul couldn't help but feel that, in the end, they'd all be fine, all a bit more in control of the action verbs in their lives—himself, and Maggie with her blog, and Beth Latimer who had already made the first move.

"You haven't actually slashed anyone's car tyres since I've been gone, have you?" Paul asked.

"Oh, believe me, petal," grinned Maggie, starting back towards the house so they could get to the train station in time, "if I had, you'd have been the first to hear, and _not_ because I felt the need to confess."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I must admit that I'm really not a Hardy/Miller shipper—not because I object to the idea on principle, but mostly because I feel like their dynamic is just so damn perfect as it is? I totally love the fact that they're _not_ romantically involved in canon, and yet they're still so completely and entirely each other's people. Honestly, the adorable scene in Season 2 where Hardy is pushing Fred's stroller around says everything about how they're there for each other in all the ways that matter, regardless of their relationship status. 😊 That said, while I'm a big fan of Platonic Best Friends situations and these two adorable idiots are at the top of my list, if you prefer to headcanon that Ellie's secretly involved with her grumpyface boss, I promise to keep writing this in a way that won't create too much cognitive dissonance, on that front.


	5. Chapter 5

Ellie had very sensibly told Beth to wait a little while before reaching back out to Paul, but he beat her to it. She woke up a few days later to find a new message from the vicar on her phone, saying he might be back in Broadchurch the weekend after next.

 _Dinner on Saturday?_ she typed back. _My place, or we could go out, whichever you'd prefer._ (She figured it would be best to let Paul decide how much he wanted people around town to speculate.)

Paul responded almost immediately.

_That would be nice._

Beth grinned and put her phone to her ear.

"Hey, Ellie? Er, you know how you offered to take Lizzie any evening that it might not be totally convenient for me to look after her...?"

"Ooh, yes, absolutely!" Beth could just imagine Ellie's cheeky smile. "Are we talking a specific day?"

"Saturday after next?"

"Yeah, Saturday should be fine, so long as nothing blows up at work." Ellie paused. "Shall I assume Lizzie'll be sleeping over at ours?"

" _Ellie_ ," laughed Beth, embarrassed.

"Fine, let's say yes, and you don't have to tell me whether or not it was necessary," Ellie decided.

The next week and a half dragged on interminably for Beth. She had a new case at work, a young university student who'd been assaulted at a party, and that alone was enough to set her nerves on end, thinking about Chloe and everything that could possibly go wrong for her daughter. By Saturday afternoon, Beth was glad to have simply the logistics of Paul's visit to distract her: drop off Lizzie at Ellie's, buy some chicken and salad ingredients in case Paul wanted to eat in, go home and shower and put on that nice burgundy knit dress. Beth hesitated before adding a tiny bit of mascara and some concealer to mask the bags under her eyes; she felt a bit silly doing so, because Paul had seen her at her absolute worst already, but Beth wanted him to see that she'd made the extra effort.

She was anxiously scrolling through the news on her phone to pass the time when she heard a knock.

"Hi," sad Paul with an awkward little wave when she opened the door.

"Hey." Beth smiled hesitantly. "Come in."

Paul followed her inside.

"You look really nice," he added. (Beth couldn't help but think that it might have taken Mark half the evening to notice.)

"Thanks," she said. "Thought I might dress up a little, just in case we decided to go out. Been a long time since I went to dinner with anyone, even just friends, so I thought, why not?"

"I hope I'm not underdressed, then," Paul fretted. He was wearing a button-up and blue jeans, and he looked perfectly respectable.

"Nah, you're good," Beth grinned. "So, what do you think? Stay in, eat out? No pressure, just because I've dressed up a bit..."

"Beth." Paul's face had gone very serious. "Before anything else, I just have to make sure I know what this all is. What it _means_."

Beth's smile faltered, but she nodded.

"Okay," she sighed. "Well, this is earlier in the evening than I'd thought I'd have to say it, but... I fancy you, Paul. Just in case I hadn't made that clear enough. You've been there for me when it feels like no one else has, and I really care for you. And I guess... I was just hoping that you might feel the same way about me, that's all. Because I'd thought that maybe you did."

It occurred to Beth that, before Danny's death, she never would have dreamt that she'd be brave enough to say something like this to a bloke she fancied. But her boy's murder had strung her emotions out for the entire town to observe and scrutinise. She felt almost like she had nothing left to hide now, especially from Paul, who had been there through it all with her. Moreover, that wrenching experience had taught Beth that life was _short_.

Paul looked away from her. And Beth felt a twinge of anger.

"Or maybe I've misread everything," she said, a hardness edging very slightly into her voice. "And that's fine, too, we can just be friends. Just tell me what your boundaries are, Paul, because I can't read you at all right now."

"I do," said Paul quickly, still not looking at her. "I do fancy you, Beth. I always have. But... I'm just not sure if it'll ever work out."

"Why?" The anger bubbled into Beth's voice now. "Is it Mark? Because he had his chance, and he bollocksed it up, and it was my choice to ask him to leave, and I did. Even if you still speak to him, he's not your responsibility, and I'm not his wife anymore, and..."

"No, it's not that," Paul muttered, looking down. "Maybe it was, once, but..."

"But what, then?" A small laugh of furious amazement escaped from Beth. "What's wrong with me, Paul? What am I missing that Becca Fisher apparently has?"

"Flaws," Paul interrupted. "That's what you're missing, Beth. You are so _good_. So good that I can't even begin to compare you to Becca Fisher. Far too good for someone like me."

Beth stared at him.

" _Too good for you?!_ "

"Beth," Paul sighed, "I know how strong you are—stronger than anyone I know. But I'm not the person you think I am. I've made terrible mistakes before. I've hurt people, in the past. Badly. And I can't bear the thought of my hurting you, too, when you've been through so much and you are the last person who deserves to be hurt more by someone she trusts..."

"Stop," Beth ordered him. "Stop it now, Paul. We've all made mistakes, haven't we? We've all made _so many bloody mistakes_ , and as long as we've atoned and moved on from them, what does it matter? Why can't you let me love you for who you are now, if you've changed?"

"How can I know that I have?" Paul asked, agonised.

Beth stepped forward and kissed him again, fiercely, passionately.

"I've spent too much time living in the past," she whispered, pulling away. "And it nearly killed me. I've moved on, Paul. I had to, to keep on living. And I wish to God that you would, too."

Paul's eyes were filled with longing as he stared at her.

"I don't _care_ what you did before," Beth continued. "I don't care who I was, either. I want this moment to matter _now_. Does it have to matter that you were who you were? Or that I was Danny's mum, or Mark's wife? Can't you let yourself want me for who I am, right now? Can't you let me have this _one moment_ for ourselves completely?"

"Oh, Beth," breathed Paul, and finally, he kissed her back.

Beth had never so much as kissed another man besides Mark, before she boldly kissed Paul two weeks prior. Now, as much as she still resented Mark's affair with Becca Fisher because of his deception, she could suddenly appreciate her ex-husband's need for novelty. Paul, as her vicar and her friend, was familiar, but _this_ —this was so new, she realised, as she explored his mouth, the feel of his hair between her fingers, the contours of his neck and his shoulder blades under her hands. She noticed the small moans that her kisses pulled from his throat, and her own gasps as he pressed his mouth to her skin. Mark had long since stopped appreciating her body, had taken her for granted; by contrast, Paul's attention to every inch of sensitive flesh was almost overwhelming in its reverence. Paul certainly didn't lack confidence, but there was a delicious hesitation in how he pulled off her dress and then her bra and panties, an infinitesimal pause before each to confirm that this was what she wanted, that he wasn't going too fast or too far. His conscientiousness, combined with the tantalising suspense, only made Beth want him even more. "Yes," she whispered as his hands stilled and then resumed; and as she helped him out of his clothes and they clung to each other, bare flesh against salty bare flesh, she whispered again, "Yes—yes, Paul, oh _god_ , yes..."

Afterwards, as they lay entwined in one another's limbs on the bed ( _her_ bed, Beth thought, no longer Mark's), Paul quietly confessed his sins.

"I was an alcoholic," he murmured as he lazily stroked Beth's hair. "For years. Drove away practically all of my friends, most of my family. Made some really, really stupid decisions—stole some money from my brother at one point, was cited for allegedly assaulting a kid when a joke got out of hand, although his family decided not to press charges. I was just... _angry_ , all the time. No reason why, I just was. I convinced myself that I didn't care about anyone, and I think deep down, I thought that no one really cared about me."

"So what changed?" Beth asked.

Paul exhaled, staring at the ceiling.

"I was heading home one night from the pub, completely wankered, of course. It was raining—pouring, really—and I tripped off the edge of the pavement and collapsed halfway in a puddle, in the middle of a road. And of course the sane part of my mind was saying, _Get out of the road, Paul, what if a car comes by and doesn't see you in the rain?_ But another part kept wondering, what if I _didn't_ move? What if I just waited for a car to put an end to all of it, get rid of my useless self, ease the burden on all of the people who had to live with what a disappointment I was? And, while I was thinking that second thought, it was like a bolt of lightning hit me. There was this voice in my head, loud and clear, that just said, _Paul, if you don't pull yourself out of this gutter right now, and something happens to you, then you'll be hurting everyone you know so much worse than your being alive and an alcoholic ever could._ And I knew that that was true. So I pulled myself out of the gutter. That was almost five years ago. And I haven't looked back since."

Beth gently turned his face so she could kiss him.

"So you became a vicar?" she said.

"Yeah," laughed Paul. "Who can say if it really was divine intervention, versus an ounce of common sense finally occurring to a drunken sot. I choose to believe it was the former, though. Belief is defined as faith when we can't prove or disprove it, after all. And I think I'm a much better person, for having become a vicar. It's made me actively engage with those who need help, at any rate. And I like to think that I've been able to help."

"You have." Beth propped her chin on one elbow. "You definitely have." She paused. "Would you really not come back to Broadchurch, Paul, just because people don't come to church anymore?"

Paul considered this.

"My faith is strongest when I can see that I'm helping others," he explained. "And, since my faith is what pulled me out of the gutter, I want to be somewhere that allows me to reflect on the fact that I'm doing God's work, every single day. Maybe you're right, maybe I'm past the point of relapsing back into who I was. But until I know that, I'll feel safest being needed, where I have to keep myself on the straight and narrow, to be sure that I can serve others like they need."

Beth thought about telling Paul that he couldn't live solely for others—but, after all, she had only just pulled herself from her own gutter of despair for the sake of her two daughters. She couldn't fault him for that belief, when she had relied on it so strongly herself. Instead, she smiled at him and shook her head slightly.

"How on earth did you think that I wouldn't be able to forgive you for all of this? And are you really so afraid that you'll become that person again, when you've come so far since that time?"

Paul hesitated.

"It's not like I haven't made mistakes while completely sober," he began.

"Well, I suppose I can forgive your sometimes-terrible taste in women, too," Beth teased him.

Paul looked as if he wanted to say something else, but he took the bait.

"Look, Beth," he said very earnestly. "That was never anything serious. Becca was fun..."

"And I'm not?" Beth quirked an eyebrow at him, trying to repress a smirk.

"There were no _consequences_ ," Paul clarified. "Neither of us were that deeply attached to the other. It just sort of happened; and it was what it was; and when it ended, that was it. Simple. If I hesitated much, much longer before diving into anything with you, it's because I knew it wouldn't be nearly so shallow. Does that make any sense?"

"Yeah," said Beth, kissing him softly again. She stretched. "Well, I suppose we could both take showers and go out, but I'm thinking that staying in might be easier, don't you? Less time wasted driving about."

"Can I at least help with the cooking?" Paul offered.

"All right, sure," Beth laughed.

Slowly, they made their way out of the bed and pulled their clothes back on, and Paul straightened out the sheets and blankets despite Beth's strong implications that that definitely wouldn't be necessary. But before they left the bedroom, Beth draped her arms around Paul's neck and kissed him once more.

"Even if it's not forever, I'm so glad you came back, Paul," she said softly.

"So am I," Paul smiled, and he followed her downstairs.


	6. Chapter 6

It being winter, the sun had yet to struggle over the horizon when Paul stirred and stretched and decided he should really head out.

"You could stay for breakfast," Beth murmured sleepily, "Ellie's not supposed to bring Lizzie back until nine..."

"If I'm honest," Paul confessed, "I made the mistake of staying at Maggie's again this visit, and I want to try to make it back over there early enough that she won't notice I was out all night."

Beth rolled over so that her face was in her pillow, and after a moment of alarm, Paul realised that her shoulders were shaking not because she was sobbing, but because she was snorting with mirth. He couldn't remember the last time he had heard Beth Latimer laugh like this, helplessly and unreservedly. Somehow, Beth's laughter made it well worth the embarrassment of feeling like a naughty teenager trying not to get caught whilst sneaking back into his parents' house.

"You're ridiculous," Beth said finally, raising her head so that her grin was only inches from his face. "Fine, well, next time you'll have to book a room at the Traders, won't you. Just in case."

Paul's heart quietly sang with the promise of her words. _Next time._ Beth felt sure enough about all of this that she thought there would be a next time.

Paul shared a final lingering kiss with Beth before she opened the front door and he retreated back across town in the weak light that preceded the dawn. He reached the house as the sun was peering over the horizon, let himself in, and was just thinking that he might get away with sneaking back unnoticed, when he turned the corner to head towards the guest room and nearly walked straight into Jocelyn.

"Oh, good, it's just you," said the barrister, a bit flustered. "I assumed as much, when I heard the key turn in the lock, but I just wanted to be sure."

"Yes," Paul stammered back, mortified. "I'm so sorry, I'll just..."

"No need to be sorry, I've been awake for the past hour anyway." Jocelyn seemed to have recovered enough that she remembered her basic manners. "Well, now that you're back, would you like a cup of tea?"

Paul was about to decline, but it wasn't like retreating to the guest room was going to erase the fact that Maggie's somewhat terrifying partner had just caught him stealing into her house before the sun was even up. He sighed and followed Jocelyn into the dining room, which was once again cluttered with binders and stacks of papers.

"Are you usually working this early?" he asked awkwardly.

"Just something about this current case," Jocelyn answered, putting the kettle on the hob. "I've been waking up at all odd hours, thinking about it. Hopefully, once I resolve the issue that's been troubling me, I'll be able to get a full night's rest again."

"Fair enough," Paul nodded, because he certainly understood insomnia.

Jocelyn shot him a smile.

"You needn't worry, Paul," she reassured him. "Outside of my professional capacity, I don't ask prying questions. And I don't tease. You'll be spared that much until Maggie wakes up."

"Right," muttered Paul, wishing he could sink slowly into the ground and be temporarily forgotten by both of his hosts. As Jocelyn busied herself fetching teacups and milk and sugar from around her kitchen, Paul meandered over to the window and gazed out at the ocean.

"This truly is the most stunning view," he said, watching the sky turn pink and gold.

"Mm, I'm glad you can enjoy it." Jocelyn hesitated when she saw Paul's confused expression. "I'd assumed that Maggie had told you by now. My vision's going. And if you're about to say you're sorry, don't. It is what it is, and I'm not letting it slow me down."

"Do many people know?" Paul asked instead, genuinely curious.

"I'm not sure." Jocelyn frowned slightly as she considered this question. "It's not like I'm actively trying to hide it. It just doesn't come up much, not when I can get through the day just fine without any assistance."

Paul nodded and took the cup of tea that she offered him. Quite unexpectedly, he recalled something that the barrister had once told all of them, during the trial. _Never lie. Lies get exposed in court._

"Can I ask you a legal question?" he said.

"I do hope it doesn't have anything to do with why you were out all night?" Jocelyn replied archly.

 _So much for not teasing_ , thought Paul with a small sigh of resignation. He really was going to have to start treating himself to a room at the Traders when he was back in town.

"The sort of omission that you just described, of simply not mentioning a fact because there might be no need," he said. "It's not a falsehood on its own, of course. But I can't help but think back to the trial, where it seemed like any sort of failure to disclose something could turn into a liability. At what point does silence become a sort of lie?"

Jocelyn took a sip of her own tea, pensive.

"In a strict legal sense, I suppose that that depends on what you've been asked," she reasoned. "One can't be perjured for failing to provide an answer to a question that no one's posed. But, as a barrister, if a client is relying on me to do my job correctly, then I need to be able to rely on them to tell me anything and everything. You saw how often things that didn't _seem_ relevant to the case actually were. So it all comes down to mutual trust between the parties, to both doing their level best to anticipate problems and exchange the necessary information in advance. And that goes for more than just lawyer-client interactions, I should add. Speaking of my vision, my failure to be perfectly candid about _that_ with my poor junior for the Joe Miller trial took quite the toll on our working dynamic, until Maggie finally bullied me into explaining why I was forcing him to do so much extra work."

"So she knew, even then?"

"Sometimes, Maggie can be a very inconveniently dogged investigator," said Jocelyn fondly. "And goodness knows, she's been able to read me like a book for years. I don't think I'd be able to keep a secret from her, if I tried."

Paul smiled, bemused. This whole bizarre morning was making him somewhat less afraid of Jocelyn Knight, but he still couldn't imagine being able to read the enigmatic barrister like a book. Relationships were very strange creatures, indeed.

"I promised I wouldn't pry," Jocelyn added seriously. "But if I can offer some unsolicited advice? It's probably best to get whatever's weighing on your mind out into the open, as soon as possible. The longer you keep it hidden, the more deceitful it's going to appear whenever it eventually comes out, and the fact that you hid it for so long will likely hurt far worse than whatever it is you're hiding. As they say, it's always the cover-up. And, if I may be perfectly candid, Beth Latimer has already suffered far too much from the secrets of people she trusted."

Paul nodded, because he knew that Jocelyn was right. But he remembered how betrayed Becca had felt when he had told her—how it was the beginning of the end for whatever they had had. And if someone as detached from the matter as Becca Fisher had reacted so strongly, he knew that it was going to be far, far worse to tell Beth Latimer about how often he had gone to prison to pray with her son's murderer.

* * *

After Paul's figure had disappeared from sight, Beth closed the door and then stood by her window, watching the sky grow brighter and brighter with the promise of the approaching sunrise. What she felt was a form of happiness, but not the sort of giddy elation that she had felt when she and Mark were at the peaks of their relationship. Beth's feelings about Paul Coates were something mellower, something more mature—something built on stability and trust, rather than pure excitement and breathlessness. Although they had only spent one night together, there was something familiar and comforting about Paul that Beth found herself craving already, even though he had only just departed. It was, Beth recognised, the solid assurance of being loved unreservedly _for_ all of her flaws, not in spite of them.

For yes, Beth did have plenty of flaws. Perhaps Paul, who had made a career of praying with those whom society found least redeemable, simply couldn't identify them for what they were. But Beth knew herself better than to think that she wasn't just as human as a Becca Fisher was, even if she counted herself as having much more integrity. The important thing was that she had never hidden any of her weaknesses from Paul, and he still loved her for exactly who she was.

And, thinking about Paul's confessions the previous night, Beth smiled. If Paul felt secure enough to tell Beth about the darkest parts of his past, then perhaps she could convince him fully that she likewise would love him just as much for his imperfections. It was worth a go, at any rate.

Beth took her time showering and eating some breakfast. She still was feeling uncharacteristically happy and serene about the world when Ellie knocked on her door.

"Hello, love!" Beth said, picking up Lizzie and kissing her on the nose. "Have a good time at Auntie Ellie's? Did you play nicely with Fred?"

Lizzie nodded, asked to be put down, and then ambled off to go locate some toys in her room that she'd missed overnight. Ellie, meanwhile, invited herself in and followed Beth into the kitchen.

"So?" she asked in a low voice. "Good evening, then?"

"Yeah, it was all right," Beth replied casually, her grin betraying much more than her words.

Ellie clapped her hands together several times, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet and beaming excitedly.

"So, what?" she asked. "You think it might become something more serious? Did he tell you if he's ever planning to come back to the area? Or should I even be assuming that you made time to talk, in the midst of everything...?"

Beth swatted at Ellie's arm.

"I'm just asking for logistical purposes," Ellie explained. "I adore Lizzie, but I can't look after her every weekend, you know."

"I don't think he wants to come back," Beth sighed. "He's still feeling burned, I guess, by the fact that no one's come to church since..." She paused. "Well, he says he needs to feel like he's actively serving God and helping others through his faith, or else he'll lose his purpose in life. And that's why he can't come back to Broadchurch. He's scared of losing himself again."

 _"Oh,_ is this to do with his...?" Ellie clamped her mouth shut. "Never mind, sorry, just ignore me."

"You _know_ about—about the problems he had, before he came here?" Beth asked obliquely.

"Er, yeah, it came out in an investigation," muttered Ellie.

"Dan's investigation," Beth said flatly.

Ellie nodded.

"Should've guessed he was a suspect," Beth said with a shuddering sigh.

" _Everyone_ was a suspect, Beth," Ellie reminded her. "And Paul wasn't for very long. But we did find out about his previous problems. Old police records. Hardy was a right prick about it, come to think of it, although I suppose that's not surprising. Anyway. What are you going to do?"

Beth shrugged.

"See how long it survives, long-distance," she said truthfully. "Not sure how much more I can do. I can't very well ask Paul to choose between me and God, can I?"

"Why not?" Ellie shrugged, impish. "For what it's worth, I'd choose you over God, any day of the week, and your vicar's an idiot if he wouldn't do the same."

"You heretic," laughed Beth.

Ellie was still in a chipper mood on Beth's behalf as she drove over to the police station to pick up a few files that she needed to review.

"You're unexpectedly cheerful," scowled Alec Hardy.

"You're predictably knobbish," Ellie retorted happily. "Listen, what do you remember about that time we had Paul Coates come into the station to give a DNA sample? Other than the fact that you were being unnecessarily obnoxious about the whole matter."

"I wasn't being _obnoxious_ ," Alec protested, ruffled. "I'm never _obnoxious_ , Miller!"

"Well, keep on telling yourself whatever gets you through the day," Ellie replied.

"Look, _he_ was being all sanctimonious about the fact that he had faith, and I had none." Alec blew a disgruntled puff of air out of one side of his mouth. "Even as he was parading in front of all the cameras that'd come down to report on the spectacle—turning a family's personal tragedy into a public pulpit and his own personal soapbox, all rolled into one. I'll tell you, Miller, people in this town may think whatever they want about me, but at least no one can accuse _me_ of being such a bloody hypocrite."

"Right, I'll add that to the list of things you're not, right after 'personable' and 'smiley'," said Ellie impatiently. "Do you remember anything else that he said, specifically? I remember him mentioning going to the AA in Yeovil to avoid running into parishioners, and I remember him explaining the police citation as a misunderstood joke. But did he say anything about how he felt about it all, when you were alone with him? Or what had made him give up drinking?"

"Nah, not really," said Alec after a moment, shaking his head. "He went off on me for riling him, after I told him it seemed he'd swapped one addiction for another; and the entire conversation was all C of E from then onwards."

"Wow, can't imagine why he was so bothered." Ellie rolled her eyes. "Well, thanks for that."

"Oh, you got something useful from all of this?" said Alec, surprised.

" _No_ ," snapped Ellie. "Where are those files you wanted me to look at, anyway?"

Alec pointed to Ellie's desk.

"What's all this about Paul Coates, anyway?" he added as Ellie shoved everything into her bag. "I thought he left, months ago?"

"Just something that came up in recent conversation." Ellie crossed her arms. "You doing all right? Everything okay with Daisy? Only it _is_ a Sunday, coming up to Christmas, and the fact that you're here rather than at home..."

"Yeah, everything's fine," sighed Alec. "Daisy's with Chloe Latimer today, doing... I dunno, whatever teenage girls do on weekends."

"Right." Ellie nodded briskly. "Well, take care of yourself, sir. See you tomorrow."

As she walked back to her car, Ellie mentally catalogued what she knew about the young reverend and his current profession: timelines, approximate dates, possible motivations. But one phrase that Hardy had said kept resurfacing in her mind: _It seemed he'd swapped one addiction for another._ If her infuriating boss was right, then maybe _that_ was what would bring the vicar back to Broadchurch for good—something that would entice him as much as drink once had, or as much as the Church did now. Beth Latimer on her own apparently wasn't enough, which Ellie personally thought was rubbish, but there it was. She sighed and unlocked her car, resolved to keep on thinking about the matter, in the hopes that something would come to mind to lure the young reverend back into Beth's vicinity for good. After all, Ellie had deftly solved Sandbrook for her boss, when he had hit a dead end. And she was equally certain she could solve Paul Coates for Beth.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW, sorry for the delay in updating... this chapter gave me a ridiculous amount of trouble, for some reason. It's ended up really being mostly set-up for the drama of the next chapter, so expect more *plot* in subsequent updates. And hopefully, this installment made up for slow pacing with lots of time spent hanging out with Ellie, because she is the greatest and I just love writing about her solving puzzles bit by bit ~~using interpersonal skills that her grumpy partner definitely does not have, LOL~~.
> 
> The first part of this chapter loosely ties into some [headcanons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24892063) that I have about Olly becoming a somewhat more responsible human and journalist in his post-canon life. 'Somewhat' being the operative word here, of course. Because let's be real, Olly wouldn't be Olly, if he weren't at least a _little_ obnoxious. 😉

For all of his not-infrequent idiocy, Ellie truly did love her nephew. So when Lucy called to say that Olly was back in town for the Christmas holidays, Ellie immediately invited the small Stevens clan over for dinner. And, to his credit, Olly did seem to have matured a bit since leaving for Liverpool a year ago. When Ellie asked him how work was going, rather than puff himself up and boast about his biggest bylines, the young reporter grimaced slightly and said that his colleagues were brilliant and work was going well, then turned the conversation to what Tom had been doing in school lately. (Ellie didn't blame him. Half a year of covering local politics in the post-Brexit era was probably more than enough to have put any journalist into a state of perpetual exhaustion.)

"Well, you've missed some more excitement from down at the police station," Lucy told him. "Big case solved last summer, by your aunt and that Inspector of hers."

"I heard about that," Olly said. "Congratulations."

"Just doing my job," shrugged Ellie. "Tom, could you pass the chicken, please?"

"I'd never have expected it, in a place like this," said Olly darkly.

" _Really_ , Olly?" snorted Ellie as she served herself. "After everything that's happened, these past few years?"

"Yeah." Olly looked a little tentative about wading into the matter of his erstwhile uncle in front of Ellie, but he frowned slightly for a moment, and then clarified, "What happened... before, was unforgivably wrong, but it wasn't premeditated. It wasn't deliberate. This was. I think there's got to be a difference."

Ellie scowled, because as a police officer, what mattered to her was that a boy had ended up dead in one case and a woman raped in another. Intention and premeditation were for lawyers to prove. Ellie was concerned only with what had actually happened.

"How are they doing, by the way?" Olly asked. "The Latimers. Maggie mentioned she'd worked on a book with Mark Latimer, to his regret. And it sounds like he moved away last summer...?"

"Yeah," sighed Ellie. "But the rest are doing all right, at least. Chloe's finally finished school and moved out of Beth's place."

"Speaking of Beth Latimer," Lucy smirked, "I've got some juicy gossip."

"Oh?" Olly's reporter ears pricked up before he apparently remembered that this was not the time and place to be looking for leads.

"Apparently," Lucy explained eagerly, "she was seen walking along the beach a few weekends back with... you'll never guess who. Paul Coates!"

 _Shit_ , thought Ellie, shooting her nephew a quick glance.

"The vicar?" Tom wrinkled his nose. "But he left."

"Well, apparently, he's not as gone as we'd thought," said Lucy with relish.

"I rather like the idea of them together." Olly smiled as he chose a roll for himself. "Much more than the idea of Paul Coates and Becca Fisher, at any rate. Paul always seemed good for Beth. She always seemed good for him, too, to be fair."

"What do you mean?" Ellie asked.

"Well, you know." Olly shrugged. "After what happened, Maggie kept dragging me around to little meetings with Beth and Paul. While Beth was trying to figure out how to cope with things, I mean. There was a point where she wanted to start a charity in Danny's name—Maggie shot that idea down a little too early, in my opinion—and Paul proposed that she help with some of the rehab programmes through the church instead. And even though that didn't work out... I dunno. The whole process of trying to help Beth figure out what to do next seemed to make Paul much more confident than he usually was. Like helping her was giving him a purpose that he didn't usually have. And, of course, it seemed like his being there helped her through things."

Ellie chewed on that thought throughout the rest of dinner, as conversation turned towards other elements of small-town gossip. Just before he left, she cornered Olly privately.

"The charity that Beth wanted to start, what was that about?"

"Er, can't quite remember." Olly scratched his head. "Something about helping kids, I think? Whatever it was, Maggie thought it wasn't an original enough idea to get grant funding."

"And the church rehab programmes?"

Olly glanced to the side to make sure that Fred wasn't wandering by, before replying, "Working with child sex offenders."

Ellie's eyebrows quirked upwards—she couldn't exactly blame Beth for not wanting to get involved with _that_ , not when things were still so fresh.

"Olly!" called Lucy from down the hall, and Ellie gestured for Olly to lead the way towards the door.

"You do realise," she added in an undertone, "that if I see that you've published _anything_ about Beth Latimer without her consent—anything at all, I don't care if it's an official tweet or an offhand comment on Facebook or a rhyming limerick in a poetry contest—I will drive straight from here to Liverpool without stopping and make sure that you regret that decision for the rest of your life?"

"Don't worry, Auntie Ellie." A bit of Olly's old swagger emerged through his demeanour of perpetual fatigue. "I've got bigger fish to fry now."

Ellie couldn't help rolling her eyes a bit as she hugged her ridiculous nephew goodbye.

"Besides," added Olly, "if I publish anything about the Latimers, and Maggie reaches me first, you might need to reanimate me to do whatever it is you're threatening."

"I'll start researching techniques tonight, then." Ellie smiled through her exasperation. "Happy Christmas, Olly."

"Happy Christmas to you, too, Auntie Ellie." The reporter smiled back. "It's good to be home for a bit."

* * *

"So, what _will_ you be doing for Christmas, then?" Beth asked, her phone clamped between her ear and her shoulder as she put groceries into the cupboards.

"Probably spending it with my brother's family," Paul answered. "We only just started speaking again last year. I think it could be a good opportunity to heal some old wounds."

"I'm sure you will," Beth smiled.

"And you said that Mark would be at yours for a few days?"

"Yeah." Beth sighed. "It's difficult, Paul. He doesn't really have anyone else, besides us. He deserves to spend Christmas with his daughters, you know? And I still do care for him a great deal. I think I always will."

"I don't know if I should feel jealous," Paul said with a slightly nervous laugh.

"Not in the slightest," Beth grinned. "Listen, I was thinking, maybe you could come round for New Year's? Start 2017 off right together, and all."

"I'd love that."

"I'm glad." Beth leaned against the counter. "Only thing is, I don't know if Chlo will want to stop by to say hello. I feel like I should probably tell her about us, in advance. If you wouldn't mind."

Paul was silent for a moment.

"Do you think she'd be angry?" he asked finally. "For her dad's sake."

"I don't think so," said Beth pensively. "She knows how hard we tried to make things work, and I think she knows that it was the right decision for us to split up."

"Still. Knowing that it was right for you and Mark to separate won't necessarily make it easier for her to see someone else taking her dad's place."

Beth took a moment to put a box of cereal in the cupboard and stood looking at it for a moment. Lizzie, it turned out, had the same tastes in sugary breakfast foods as her brother. The realisation had made Beth want to burst into tears in the middle of the cereal aisle, when Lizzie had first pointed to the box, but with enough time, Beth had learned to buy what Lizzie wanted for breakfast without being catapulted emotionally back into those first impossible days after Danny's death. Without being catapulted emotionally back into the afternoon that she had fled from the stares of everyone in the supermarket, and crashed her car into a post in the car park, and sat with Paul Coates for an hour when he stopped to comfort her.

"She'll have to get used to it sometime, won't she," Beth pointed out. "And you know, the funny thing about having kids young is that they sort of understand what you're going through, when they're no longer young but you're not yet old."

Paul let out an appreciative little laugh.

"I wouldn't mind, to answer your question," he said. "I think it'll be best if we're open with everyone about everything, as soon as possible."

"Yeah," Beth grinned. "No more secrets."

Paul was quiet for a moment.

"I wish I were there with you, right now," he said finally. "There's so much I want to say..."

"I know," Beth nodded. "I miss you, too, Paul. But New Year's is right around the corner, right? We'll see each other soon enough."

"Yeah," said Paul softly. "And we'll talk then."

"Call me, once you've made plans? Call me before then, even! It really does make me smile, just to see your number pop up on my mobile screen."

"Take care of yourself, Beth," said Paul quietly before he hung up.

Chloe was off living her own life by now, but she made herself at home as soon as she arrived back at Beth's. Of course, Chloe being her responsible self, this meant that she immediately started helping Beth prepare dinner, and checked on Lizzie before Beth could even get around to asking, and generally fell back into the supportive role that she had quietly taken on in the aftermath of Danny's death. Beth asked Chloe how her job was going (boring, but paid the bills), how classes were going (fine), how the new boyfriend was (the best thing that had happened to Chloe in a long time).

"Can I ask you one more thing?" Beth asked that evening.

"Yeah, of course," said Chloe, swirling her glass of wine slightly in one hand (and Beth tried to ignore how strange it was that her daughter could legally _drink_ now).

Beth hesitated as she tried to decide exactly what to say. Chloe, head tilted quizzically, nudged Beth's foot with her own under the blanket that they were sharing from opposite ends of the sofa.

"Mum?"

"I've started seeing someone," Beth began tentatively. "I was hoping he could come round for New Year's. But I wanted to make sure you'd be okay with it, first."

Chloe furrowed her brow at Beth.

"Why wouldn't I be okay with it?" she asked. "So long as he's a decent person and makes you happy."

Beth released a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding in.

"I just thought... I mean, your dad..."

"You and Dad haven't been together for two years now," Chloe shrugged. "I certainly wasn't holding out any _Parent Trap_ hopes that you'd get back together. Even before everything else happened, I think I knew that you two weren't quite right for each other. Not something that you want to admit about your parents when you're fifteen. But it probably would have happened at some point."

Beth smiled.

"You're probably right," she said softly. "I wish it weren't the case..."

"But it is what it is," Chloe said firmly. "Look, Mum, I know that a part of you will always love Dad. I get it. But, well, you know what they say about leading a horse to water. You've tried your best to help him. And you're allowed to move on with your own life, too."

Beth put her wine glass down on the side table and leaned over to hug Chloe.

"Thank you, Chlo," she whispered. "That means a lot to me. And I hope you know that none of it is ever going to impact how much I love you."

"Yeah, I know, Mum," grinned Chloe. "So, how'd you meet him?"

Beth hesitated.

"It's someone you know, actually," she said, slightly sheepish. "Paul Coates."

"The vicar?" Chloe took a sip of wine and let the idea settle in a bit. "Yeah, okay. Not like you need to explain any of it to him, at least."

"I really like him, Chlo," Beth explained, a small smile on her face. "I mean, I've really liked him as a friend for years, of course. But now... he just makes me feel young, in a way I haven't felt for ages, you know? Like the world is filled with new possibilities again."

"Like you can define yourself differently, become someone else?" Chloe said quietly, and Beth looked at her.

"Not someone else," she clarified. "I don't want to be someone else, Chlo. I always want to be your mum, and Lizzie's mum, and Danny's mum. But I want to be able to move out completely from under this shadow that I've been living under, for so long. And Paul—like you said, he just understands it all. He _knows_ that I'm your mum, first and foremost. But he's also come face to face with that shadow, and if anyone can help me find a way out, it's him. He's made me feel like I can be who I am, and still learn to move on, in spite of it all."

"Yeah, well." Chloe smiled. "I'm happy for you, Mum. I really am. And I'll look forward to seeing Paul, if he's around for New Year's."

* * *

"Maggie?"

Ellie pulled her shopping cart to the side of the aisle as the journalist turned.

"Ellie! Happy almost-Christmas! How are things?"

"Oh, fine." Ellie gestured to her overfilled cart. "Last-minute shopping, like everyone else here, I imagine. Listen, I was chatting with Olly a few evenings ago, and he mentioned something that I was hoping to discuss with you. If you have any spare time, that is, maybe sometime after the holidays?"

Maggie raised her eyebrows, curious.

"Always more than happy to sit down for a coffee, but really, petal, you can't leave me in suspense until after the holidays," she said. "What's it you want to discuss? I assume nothing police-related?"

"No, a personal matter, but... er." Ellie suddenly realised that, even if Paul and Maggie were friends, she had no idea how much Maggie knew about Paul and Beth. "He said that you—meaning, you and Olly—at one point were meeting with Beth and Paul Coates, about things that she could do to memorialise Danny. And I was just wondering if I could ask you to clarify anything that you remember from those conversations?"

Maggie glanced at Ellie shrewdly.

"You certainly can, and I'm happy to share, although I _am_ curious to know why you can't just ask Beth..."

"I will, eventually," Ellie said. "I'm just, er, trying to do some background research first."

"Hmm." Maggie waited for a woman to pass them in the aisle, then asked Ellie in an undertone, "All right, I definitely don't want to force you to divulge information that's not yours to share, but is this conversation really going to be about memorialising Danny, or is it actually about Beth and Paul? Just because it's probably easier if we're on the same page here, less skirting about issues and all..."

Ellie didn't know what her face was doing, but after a moment, Maggie smirked.

"Thought as much."

"I didn't say..." Ellie protested.

"Bless your heart, petal, but you really don't have any poker face to speak of." Maggie grinned. "Well, I'm certainly looking forward to talking to you about all of this. _Nothing_ I've said to Paul seems to have really gotten through to him, but if you can shed any light on what Beth's thinking is, maybe we can find some way to convince him to stay around Broadchurch for longer than the odd weekend?"

"That's the hope," Ellie conceded.

"He mentioned by text a few days ago that he'd be back in the area around New Year's, I'll try to take his temperature on things then. But let's definitely sit down sometime in January and scheme a bit. You have my number, yes?"

"Think so, yeah." Ellie grinned. "Thanks, Maggie, for being willing to talk."

"Thank _you_ , petal," Maggie replied. "Goodness knows, I'd like nothing better in life than to see both Beth and Paul as happy as possible. You take care, and enjoy the holidays, all right?"

"You, too," Ellie replied. She was so chuffed with her success in having enlisted help to sort things out for Beth that she was halfway home before she realised she'd completely forgotten to buy the ham for Christmas dinner, and, cursing cheerily, turned the car around to head back to the supermarket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me that I can't recall a single conversation between Ellie and Maggie in three seasons' worth of _Broadchurch_ , and that truly seems like a pity because I feel like they'd have a pretty adorable friendship. Which, I suppose, is all the more reason to supplement here what Chris Chibnall didn't give us in canon, and make Ellie and Maggie cheerful co-conspirators meddling in their friends' lives for all of the best reasons...


	8. Chapter 8

Christmas arrived, and with it came rain in grey gusts, and presents wrapped in brightly coloured paper, and Mark in the familiar old plumbing van. Beth, watching from the open door, could see that Mark's body still sagged under the weight of his grief for Danny's loss, as heavily as it had when he had left Broadchurch. But his face lit up as Lizzie ran to him, shouting in excitement, and as he lifted her into the air with a grin, Beth caught glimmers of the handsome man who had stolen her heart away in their carefree youth.

"How're things, Beth?" Mark asked, walking towards her with Lizzie's hand in his. Worn as he appeared, he had had the presence of mind to wear a dark purple button-up that brought out the vividness of his eyes. Beth hadn't seen him so formally attired since they'd gone in to have the paperwork signed for their separation.

"Good," said Beth, and she was surprised to realise that this was true. She let Mark kiss her on the cheek, then pulled away when his face lingered next to hers for a second too long. "Glad to have you here, Mark."

And Beth meant it, although it always was strange to have Mark come back to the house that they had shared for nearly two decades. His presence was both painfully foreign and uncannily familiar, the way it felt whenever Beth discovered a stray pair of Danny's socks in the laundry basket or one of her boy's handmade birthday cards between the pages of a book. She watched Mark approximate his old role in her life with a bittersweet grief tugging at her heart, sun-washed memories of laughter at the edge of the sea warring with an inescapable grief over how much they had lost. Shooed out of the kitchen by Beth, Mark sat on the sofa with Lizzie and read her picture books until Chloe arrived; and watching him in the living room, Chloe sprawled across one end of the sofa, Lizzie on Mark's knee on the other end, Beth could not help but feel a small sense of resentment for how happy her family might have remained, even without Danny, if only Mark had been willing to pull his share of the weight.

Beth's phone buzzed on the kitchen counter, and she grinned when she saw the simple text from Paul. _Happy Christmas to you, too_ , she texted back. _Hope all is well at your brother's._

Chloe left shortly after dinner to go spend the rest of the evening with her boyfriend, and Lizzie fell asleep shortly thereafter. Soon, it was just Beth and Mark sitting in the living room, listening to the tick of the clock in the corner.

"You seem different," Mark said.

"Do I?" Beth replied.

"Lighter," Mark clarified. "Like you've let some of him go."

Beth didn't appreciate that Mark had almost made it sound like an accusation, but she couldn't deny the general sentiment.

"I'm still carrying him with me, Mark," she sighed. "I always will. But I've been finding ways to live with things, in spite of it all. It's been easier, lately."

"Without me, you mean."

This time, there was no mistaking the bitterness in Mark's voice. Beth bit back a retort, because it was Christmas and because she didn't feel like getting dragged into Mark's problems, not tonight.

Mark, however, decided to drag Beth into his problems regardless.

"I miss you, Beth," he said softly. "I miss this house. I miss seeing my darling girl growing up—"

"Then come back, Mark," Beth said sharply. It occurred to her that her life was filled with men who refused to be in the one town that they simply couldn't bear to leave behind, and she was suddenly angry. "No one's stopping you from being part of Lizzie's life, we've talked about you taking her some weekends..."

"You know I can't come back, Beth," Mark snapped. "It hurts too much to be in Broadchurch. It hurts too much to see my family and not to be a part of it anymore."

"You're still a part of this family—"

"Am I, though?" Mark replied, his voice rising a hair. "Because it doesn't feel like it, you know? Being with all of you here, talking with my girls on the sofa, sitting around the table at dinner, it still feels like there's a pane of glass separating me from the rest of you. Maybe none of us can see it, maybe none of us are going to acknowledge it, but we all _know_ it's there, don't we."

An image suddenly flashed through Beth's mind, of Mark standing in the transparent, bulletproof box in the courtroom where Joe Miller had passed the duration of his trial. For a fleeting instant, she contemplated that perhaps it was unfair for Mark Latimer to face the consequences of his recklessness in the same manner as Joe Miller ultimately had, cut off from his family and left to flounder, all thanks to a rapid series of crude impulses on one otherwise unremarkable night in July 2013. But Beth had done her level best to move past all of Mark's stupidity and selfishness. On her best days, she somehow managed to forgive him for everything—for that dalliance with Becca Fisher and for the letter that he wrote after, for threatening Joe Miller in prison, for all of those ridiculous meetings with Tom Miller in the trailer park. Any guilt and blame in which Mark still encased himself was his and his alone.

"What do you want me to do about it, Mark?" she asked, suddenly weary. "We tried, and it's over."

"Is it?" asked Mark, his voice husky. "Because I still love you, Beth. And I know that I haven't handled things the way I should have, these past few years. But being away for a few months, it's really made me face what I'd be missing..."

"And, like I said, I want you to be a part of Lizzie's life," Beth interrupted, trying to control her temper. "I want you to come back here and be the father that we both want you to be for her. But that doesn't mean that I'm taking you back, Mark. You know I still care about you, and I want us to be friends, especially for Lizzie and Chloe's sake. But I've moved on. And before anything else happens, you need to respect that I've moved on."

Mark looked down at the coffee table.

"Is it because you've found someone else?" he asked in a wounded voice.

And Beth nearly shouted at him, because it _should_ have been enough for Mark to hear that she didn't want to be with him anymore; her affections weren't property that was inherently up-for-grabs unless it actively belonged to someone else. But she didn't want to wake Lizzie, and besides, everyone was going to know about her and Paul sooner or later.

"Not that it's any of your business, but yeah, I have," she told him coolly.

Mark seemed to deflate a bit on the spot.

"So, that's it, then," he said, his voice shaky.

"Don't, Mark," Beth sighed, exasperated.

"Will you at least tell me who?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because I worry about you!" Mark's head finally snapped upwards so he could stare Beth in the eyes. "I worry about you and Lizzie and Chloe. Maybe it's not my place, but I do. And I want to know that I can trust whoever is playing with my little girl in the evenings."

From anyone else, the request would have sounded too melodramatic to take seriously. But Beth understood, better than anyone, the frantic anxiety that went hand-in-hand with having lost one child and fearing losing another.

"It's Paul Coates," she said. "You know he wouldn't touch a hair on Lizzie's head."

Mark stared at Beth.

"Paul Coates."

"Yeah."

Mark turned his gaze back down to the coffee table, stunned.

"Come on, Mark," Beth sighed. "We've been separated for months. You can't act like I've betrayed your trust in any way."

She hadn't meant for the sentence to come out like it did, but it struck Mark like a blow to the face. Staggering under his anger and guilt, he lashed out at Beth.

"Oh, can't I?" he spat. "I've confided in him! All these months, I thought he was on _my_ side, trying to help me sort my life out and come back here to you! And this was what he was doing, was it? Trying to play nice with me so he could sneak into my bed with my wife behind my back!"

"For god's sake, Mark!" Beth hissed back. "I'm _not_ your wife anymore, why can't you accept that? _Nothing_ happened when we were still married, all right? We didn't do anything that we didn't have the right to do."

Mark glared at Beth.

"Don't you dare, Beth," he seethed. "Don't you dare hold Becca Fisher over my head..."

"And why shouldn't I?" Beth spat back. "You sit here, talking about how much your family means to you, but how much should I believe you? How much should I trust that you wouldn't change your mind tomorrow, when you once almost left all of this behind just because she was _different_...?!"

" _I made a mistake_ ," Mark burst out. "Jesus, Beth, how many times do I have to apologise? Why can't you just let it go?"

"Because you haven't changed, Mark!" Beth shouted. "All the things that led to that mistake, they're all still there in you. And I know you're trying to do better, but I need someone who sometimes is willing to think about me before he thinks about himself."

"And that's Paul Coates?" Mark asked scornfully.

"Yeah." Beth pushed herself from the sofa and stormed across the room to stand by the window, gazing out into the darkness. "He's not perfect, Mark. None of us are. But he's worked hard to correct the things in his past that he's ashamed of. He's open with me. We don't have secrets. And even though he's always there to support me when I start grieving for Danny, he lets me have moments when I can focus on the good things in my life, too."

She was startled when, after a moment, Mark emitted a spiteful little puff of laughter.

"He hasn't told you, has he," he asked. "You still don't know."

"Know what?" Beth asked, turning away from the window.

"About Paul Coates and Joe Miller." An ugly smile had appeared on Mark's handsome face.

"What're you talking about?" Beth asked.

"I'm talking about how Paul Coates went and _prayed_ with Joe Miller," Mark continued. "All through the trial. Joe's lawyers even asked Paul to be a character witness, has he never mentioned that?"

"I don't believe you," Beth said, her heart hammering. "Why would he tell _you_ and not me?"

"Oh, Paul never told me," said Mark bitterly. "Joe told me himself, when I tracked him down. Said that Paul cared more about Joe than Joe's own wife did, all through those months. Said that Paul was the only hope he had that, one day, he might be able to hold his head up high in Broadchurch again."

"No," Beth said. "No, that..."

"If you're so _open_ with each other, if he doesn't keep any secrets from you, then why don't you ask him?" Mark snapped. "Paul doesn't seem like the sort who's good at lying, I doubt he'd deny it."

"Why would you _ever_ believe anything that that murderer told you?" Beth burst out, her voice ragged with pain.

"Because why would Joe Miller lie about _this_?" Mark shouted back.

Both their heads suddenly turned towards the stairwell as they heard Lizzie calling anxiously for Beth.

"Happy Christmas, Beth," added Mark viciously as Beth headed for the stairwell. She heard him slam the door behind him as she reached the landing. Beth gave herself five seconds to collapse against the wall, covering her face with her hands to muffle a strangled sob, before she put on a brave face for Lizzie and moved down the hallway to her bedroom door. In the weak light straggling onto the landing from downstairs, Danny's face smiled innocently from the photos on the walls, as if gently chastising his mother for ever trying to forget.

* * *

Paul's Christmas at his brother's had gone remarkably well. So well, in fact, that his sister-in-law had invited him to come back for a weekend sometime in the near future, to the utter delight of his little nephew. He was on the train back to Canterbury the day after Christmas, feeling more optimistic about the new year than he had felt since he had first sobered up, and, thinking of no one he'd rather share his joy with, Paul rang Beth.

"Beth!" he said happily when she picked up. "Good moment to talk?"

Silence on the other end of the line. Paul checked to make sure the train hadn't just hit a dead spot and then put his phone back to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Don't contact me again, Paul," Beth said very softly.

For a moment, Paul was sure he had misheard her.

"Sorry?"

"When I hang up," Beth said, her voice slightly louder but still rigid with fury, "I'm going to block your number, and if we ever meet again face-to-face, I will pretend that we've never met and I can't see that you exist."

"Beth," said Paul with an uneasy laugh, sure that this must be some sort of joke, "what do you mean—"

"What did _you_ mean, Paul?" exploded Beth. "Going to meet with Joe Miller throughout the entire trial? And all the while appearing at our doorstep, offering condolences, offering words of comfort, when us and Danny were never as important to you as all the news cameras and your own fifteen minutes of fame?"

"No," whispered Paul.

"We _trusted_ you, Paul," Beth seethed. "We trusted you, and you were double-dealing us the entire time! What idiots you must have thought we were."

"Beth," stammered Paul, feeling as if his stomach had suddenly dropped a foot, "Beth, listen, you don't understand..."

"No, _you_ don't understand, Paul!" Beth raged. " _You_ don't understand how it feels, when every time you try to trust a man who says he cares about you, he does things to hurt you and then hides them until the truth finally is forced out! I'm sick to death of it! I'm sick to death of being betrayed by the people who claim to love me! And I never want to hear from you again, you hear me?"

"Beth..."

"Goodbye, Paul"—and then she was gone.

Paul lowered his phone from his ear, stunned. He tried calling Beth back, to no avail; it seemed she had made good on her promise to block his number. _Beth, please, let me explain_ , he texted her, knowing that she would never receive the messages. Eventually, Paul sat back against his seat, defeated, and listlessly watched the grey winter countryside trundle by his train window.

Paul's bicycle was right where he had left it at the train station, and he hopped onto it and began pedaling without any direction. His mind was awhirl with Beth's anger and his wrenching guilt at not having come clean with her earlier, but most of all with the unshakeable fact that he had just ruined the truest happiness he had had in years. _Beth, please call me_ , he tried again as he stopped at a street corner, nowhere near his flat; and then, because the rain suddenly started coming down in sheets, he retreated into the nearest pub and sat down at the counter and tried to reach Beth, again and again and again. Around him, happy groups of people out celebrating Boxing Day over drinks laughed loudly; Paul, feeling the panic seeping from his entrails throughout the rest of his body, put his head in his hands and willed the room to stop spinning around him. When the girl behind the counter put a pint next to Paul's hand with a wink and a "Here, you look like you could use this, mate," Paul reached for it without thinking. The hoppy froth of beer filled his throat, and he gasped at the sudden familiarity of the taste. When he was done with the pint, all too quickly, he didn't stop the girl from bringing him another.

Paul had been sober for so long that he had forgotten that only one pint would have gotten him properly drunk. After four pints, though, the girl stopped bringing him more, even when he called for it, his cheek pressed against the counter.

"You're past your limit," she told him sympathetically. "Can I call you a taxi?"

"No," slurred Paul. He blinked at the girl and reflected that he wouldn't mind fucking her if she'd have him, even though she was nowhere near as perfect as Beth Latimer. But then Beth's rejection hit him again, sharply, in the gut, and with a sob, he staggered away from the counter and stumbled out the door.

The rain was still pounding down, pummeling the rooftops and the cobblestones and the churning surface of the River Stour. Paul fumbled with the key to his bicycle lock and finally managed to unchain his bicycle. He had no helmet, and the rain had already soaked through his hair, but irrationally, he reasoned that it would be best to ride home and get out of the rain all the sooner. When the police wrote up their report fifteen minutes later, the blue glow of the ambulance sweeping in through their windshield, they noted that the man had no lights on his bicycle and no reflective clothing, but that it might not have mattered much if he had. With the rain coming down as hard as it was, it would have been almost impossible for the van to have seen Paul as he careened through a blinding spray of puddle and straight into its path, either way.


	9. Chapter 9

Maggie was worried. New Year's Eve was tomorrow evening, and Paul still hadn't answered any of her messages over the past few days about his travel plans to and from Broadchurch.

"He's probably just busy with family," Jocelyn reasoned. "It _is_ the holidays, after all."

"But it isn't like him to not answer a text for days at a time," Maggie insisted. "Paul usually responds within a few hours to at least say that he'll follow up soon. Besides, he was going to stay at the Traders this visit, but I've called over and they don't have him down as having booked a room."

"Not being at all nosy, are we?" Jocelyn chided.

"Investigative journalist," Maggie reminded her with a shrug. "What can I say, old habits die hard."

Paul wasn't answering his phone, and as nosy as Maggie could be, she wasn't _quite_ bold enough to call Beth and ask what she had heard about the situation. So, after half a morning of pacing about her living room and fretting, Maggie called Ellie Miller instead.

"Coffee! I'm so sorry, Maggie, the holidays have completely gotten away from me," Ellie began when she answered her mobile.

"No worries at all, on that count," Maggie replied. "I actually was wondering if I could ask for your help with a police-related matter."

"Oh! Of course. Is everything all right?"

"Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out," Maggie sighed. "Paul's supposed to be arriving in Broadchurch tomorrow, and he said he'd be in touch about his travel plans, but I've spent days waiting for him to respond to my messages, and nothing but radio silence. Jocelyn thinks I'm overreacting, but I still feel like something's wrong."

"So you want me to...?"

"Can't you call over to the police station in Canterbury and ask if anything's happened?" Maggie asked. "I'm guessing they certainly wouldn't tell me anything if I rang them, especially now that I don't even have _The Echo_ 's name to bolster my credibility. But they might tell you. Please, Ellie, even if you think I'm overreacting, too..."

"I'll give it a go," Ellie promised, sounding very unconvinced. "If it'll put your mind at ease."

Maggie expected to receive a text from Ellie telling her that that Canterbury police hadn't had anything to say. She didn't expect Ellie to ring her back only ten minutes later.

"Ellie?"

"Oh, god, it's not good," Ellie said shakily. "Apparently, he was in a bad accident on Boxing Day. Hit by a van while he was on his bike. The police report didn't say how bad his injuries were, but he wasn't wearing a helmet, and he wasn't responsive by the time they and the ambulance arrived..."

"Jesus," Maggie whispered, sitting down in a chair. "Did the report say where the ambulance took him?"

"Er, yeah, hang on, I wrote down the name of the hospital, I'll text it to you..."

"Ellie, someone ought to tell Beth—and, much as Beth knows I care about her, it probably shouldn't be me."

"Yeah." Ellie sighed. "I'm technically on duty all afternoon, but I'll see if I can step out."

"Thank you, petal. Please do keep me posted."

With nothing else to do, Maggie phoned the hospital to ask about Paul's condition.

"I'm sorry, I can only release that information to a relative," said the woman on the other end of the line, somewhat apologetically.

"I'm his aunt," Maggie invented. (Jocelyn rolled her eyes at this blatant lie as she passed through the room.) "Hasn't anyone else called to inquire about him? His brother, maybe?"

"You're the first, as far as I can tell. He's stable, but he's been pretty heavily sedated these past few days, only just waking up for short intervals. So he hasn't been missing any visitors, anyway."

Maggie grimaced, but she thanked the woman and texted Ellie once she'd hung up.

Ellie, meanwhile, had just parked outside of Beth's house and rapped on the front door.

"Ellie? What are you...?"

"Hey, so sorry, erm, could I come in for just a moment?" Ellie said awkwardly, and Beth shepherded Ellie just inside and shut the door.

"Is everything all right?" Beth asked warily.

"Think so, yeah." Ellie exhaled. "Look, I don't know how to tell you this, exactly, but... it's Paul."

Beth's expression darkened.

"I don't want to hear anything about him," she spat.

Ellie blinked.

"What? This is Paul Coates we're both talking about, right?"

"I was an _idiot_ for ever having trusted him," Beth raged.

"Oh." This was not what Ellie had been expecting at all, and she couldn't decide whether this was better or worse than her expectation of watching Beth break down in tears. "Er, well, I thought you should know that he's in hospital. Has been for the past few days. Bad accident."

"Serves him right," snarled Beth. "Is that all?"

"Yeah." Ellie forced herself to stop gaping like a goldfish over this abrupt reversal. "Yeah, just... just thought I'd tell you. Have to get back to the station, but see you soon?"

Beth nodded tersely and shut the door on Ellie as soon as she had stepped outside. Ellie turned and faced the solid wood, still somewhat stunned, and she was still standing there when she heard something inside shatter.

"Beth?" Ellie said, pushing the door open.

Beth was sitting on the floor of her kitchen, her face in her hands, a kitchen plate lying in shards next to her.

" _Why does this keep happening to me?!_ " she sobbed.

"Oh, Beth." Ellie sat down on the floor and put an arm around her friend, her brow creased with concern. "I don't know. It's not fair."

"I just feel so angry," Beth wept. "And I can't tell if I'm more angry at him for lying to me, or at the world for trying to take him away from me before I could hear him apologise."

Lizzie, who had heard the sound of the plate shattering on the kitchen floor, appeared in the kitchen, and Beth held her arms out for her worried little girl.

"It's all right, Lizzie," she sniffed. "Mummy's just heard that something scary happened to a friend. But everything's going to be all right, okay?"

Ellie, watching Beth kiss Lizzie and send her back to her room, thought about all of the kind little half-truths that they told their children to keep them going. And she suddenly was filled with resolve to make sure that, this time, everything actually _would_ be all right for Beth Latimer.

"Come on," she said, pushing herself to her feet. "Get your coat, get Lizzie's coat. We're going to Canterbury."

"We're what?" said Beth, a perplexed expression on her tear-streaked face.

"Look, I obviously don't know what exactly happened, but it sounds like the two things that you need right now are to see for yourself that Paul's still alive, and to give him a good bollocking for whatever he did." Ellie shrugged. "Seems like the only way to do that is by going to visit him. Maggie called the hospital, and they told her that he's conscious for intervals at a time now, at any rate."

"But you have to get back to work," Beth pointed out.

"Beth, go get Lizzie ready," Ellie sighed. "Leave all of the logistics to me."

And so Beth went to go change Lizzie into warmer clothes. Ellie, meanwhile, asked Lucy to pick Fred up from childcare and make sure that Tom ate something for dinner; texted Maggie back to let her know that she'd be getting a status update from Canterbury soon enough; and then called her boss.

"Yeah?"

"Something's come up," Ellie said without preamble. "Going to have to take personal leave for the rest of the day, and please, just accept it and don't make a production out of it, will you?"

"Right," Alec replied. "Er, anything I can do to help?"

"No, thanks, but I'll let you know if that changes."

"Of course," said Alec. "You take care, Miller, all right?"

Beth didn't say much as they started out for Canterbury, only stared out the window at the fields and moody grey sky. After about half an hour, though, Lizzie had fallen asleep from the motion of the car, and Ellie finally decided that enough was enough.

"All right," she sighed, "you'd better tell me before we reach Kent what happened between you and Paul."

Beth said nothing for a moment, only shifted in her seat, her attention still turned towards the drab scenery.

"Beth?"

"He visited Joe," Beth explained through gritted teeth. "While he was in prison. Throughout the entire trial, Ellie, he was going behind my back to _pray_ with that murderer."

Ellie winced, because that did sound like a fairly just reason to cut Paul off.

"He told you all this?"

"No, of course not," said Beth with a furious little laugh. "That's what makes it even worse. _Mark_ told me, when he was visiting for Christmas. I didn't want to believe him, but Paul didn't deny it."

"So you've already discussed all of this with Paul, then?" When Beth didn't respond, Ellie sighed. "Because, if you have, then I'd appreciate knowing so I can turn the car around and be home in time for dinner with my boys."

"I didn't..." Beth's voice caught on a sob. "I didn't let him tell his side of things. When we last spoke, I mean. And I owe him that much, Ellie."

* * *

By the time Ellie's car pulled into the car park outside the hospital, the sky had long since darkened into the early winter night, and Beth herself had dozed off in the passenger seat of Ellie's car. Ellie squeezed Beth's shoulder to wake her up, and with a groggy Lizzie blinking in Beth's arms, the two made their way into the hospital.

"Paul Coates?" The man at the desk scanned the records on his computer. "Yeah, let me see if he's awake and up for visitors... could you let me know who I should say's just arrived?"

"Just Beth Latimer," Ellie replied, before Beth could say anything. "I'll wait out here with Lizzie," she added to Beth.

When the receptionist had set the phone down and asked a nurse to accompany Beth, she handed Lizzie over to Ellie and followed the nurse down the long, too-bright corridors of the hospital, watching figures in scrubs dart past, the whirs and beeps of machines behind doors and curtains filling the space. Beth shivered. The last time she'd been in a hospital corridor like this one, it was because Mark had just been pulled from the freezing ocean, his lips curled into a slight smile at the prospect of death.

Finally, the nurse stopped outside one of the identical doors on the corridor.

"He's been sleeping as much as you'd expect, after an accident of this magnitude, but he's been doing surprisingly well and he should be awake right now," he told Beth. "Call if you need anything."

Hesitantly, Beth pushed open the door and closed it behind her. The overhead fluorescent lights were off, so the only light came from a small desk lamp on the night stand, and from the many screens tracking pulse rates and blood pressure and all sorts of other statistics. Paul lay on the bed in the centre of the room, his eyes closed and his face even more pale that usual. Beth shuddered as she glanced at Paul's arm, resting on the blanket tucked in around him, and noted the many drips held in place with medical tape. After a moment, she steeled herself and walked to the side of the bed, then put her hand over his, ignoring the oximeter on his finger.

"Paul," she said softly.

Paul's eyelids fluttered open, and after a moment, his eyes focused on Beth.

"Hey," Beth whispered, her mouth quirking into an involuntary smile.

"Beth?" Paul's voice was ragged, and he shut his eyes. "This time, will you stay?"

"What do you mean, Paul?" Beth asked, her voice calm but her heart hammering anxiously.

"You keep leaving," Paul insisted. "Every time, you leave before I can tell you how sorry I am."

"I'll stay this time," Beth promised, and she squeezed his hand, just to make sure he knew that she meant it. The gesture seemed to startle Paul, for his breath caught and his eyes flew open.

"You're really here," he breathed, his brow furrowed in amazement.

"That's right, Paul," said Beth, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead with her other hand. "I'm here."

Paul let out a wheezing laugh.

"It's just, I've dreamt so many times that you were standing at my bedside, like you are now. I assumed that this was the same." He sighed. "Will you let me apologise now?"

Beth shook her head.

"Not right now," she said. "Soon, yes. There's a lot we need to discuss. But for now, the important thing is that you're alive, and I'm here to see it with my own eyes."

Paul smiled wanly.

"Can you ever forgive me?" he asked.

Beth gently kissed him on the forehead.

"I wouldn't have come all the way to Canterbury, if I didn't think I could," she reassured him. "I'm going to go talk to your doctors, but I'll come back. I promise."

Beth followed the exit signs back down the corridor and to the waiting room. Lizzie was properly awake by now, and Ellie was trailing her around the waiting area as Lizzie clambered over plastic chairs and flipped through magazines left on tables.

"How is he?" Ellie asked. "Did you give him the bollocking he deserved?"

Beth shook her head.

"Saving that for later."

"Yeah, well, may have more on that count for you," Ellie muttered. "His primary doctor just went into a surgery, so it'll be a while... shall we go find food while we wait?"

Ellie, it turned out, had flashed her badge at the doctors and managed to impress them into showing her a copy of Paul's medical records. She recounted the details to Beth as Beth picked at a plate of spaghetti and tried to convince Lizzie to stop being a picky eater.

"Three cracked ribs, a broken shinbone, had to reset one of his shoulders and pop a disc back into place. Surgery to stop some massive internal bleeding, although that's all cleared itself up by now, shouldn't be a problem if he just stays put in bed. Actually, the doctors say he's actually currently about as stable as they can make him; his oxygen levels and heart rate have been normal, and nothing so far has indicated that his concussion will cause lasting damage. Moving forward, it's mostly just a question of him giving his bones and his brain enough time and rest to heal completely, before he starts physical therapy to make sure that everything eventually goes more or less back to normal. He's quite lucky, considering everything that could have happened." Ellie paused to take a bite of very cheesy lasagne. "Oh, but here's the bit that you should include in any pending bollocking, along with the lack of bicycle helmet: His blood alcohol levels were through the roof when they brought him into A&E. Sounds like he fell off the wagon pretty hard on Boxing Day."

Beth slumped back against the booth and covered her face with her hands.

"This is all my fault," she choked. "I spoke to him on Boxing Day, told him I never wanted to speak to him again. Oh, god, Ellie..."

"Beth, no." Ellie reached across the table and seized Beth's elbow. "Whatever you said to Paul, it was his own choice to have as much to drink as he did. And as shitty as things are right now, he's still alive, and he'll recover. You have every opportunity to make things right again between the two of you. Don't ruin that opportunity by blaming yourself and running away from everything."

By the time they'd returned to the hospital and spoken with Paul's doctors, neither Ellie nor Beth had the energy to drive all the way back to Broadchurch from Canterbury, and so Ellie looked up a cheap hotel where they could spend the night and paid for the room herself over Beth's protesting. While Beth was getting Lizzie ready for bed, Ellie called Lucy to inform her that Tom and Fred were staying at hers overnight, then called Maggie with the promised updates, then texted Alec to let him know that she'd be out for the half-day that the police station was calling its on-duty officers into work on New Year's Eve. By the time she turned out the lights, Beth and Lizzie breathing softly in the bed opposite, Ellie felt very secure in the conviction that, somehow, everything would be all right, after all.

* * *

Paul blinked slowly awake the next morning, positive that Beth's appearance had been yet another dream. He was reconciling himself to that disappointment when a nurse knocked and opened the door, announcing that Paul's aunt was here to see him.

 _My aunt?_ thought Paul blearily, and he wasn't sure if it made perfect sense or no sense at all when, a moment later, Maggie Radcliffe breezed through the door.

"Good god, Paul," she sighed, taking in the sorry sight of him with her arms akimbo. "Well, the nurses have assured me many times over that you're well on the mend, and I'm _very_ glad to hear that that's their professional opinion."

"Do I want to know why the nurses think you're my aunt?" Paul croaked in response.

"May have let them develop that impression when I was calling around, trying to figure out what happened to you," Maggie winked, pulling up a chair next to Paul's bed. "You had me worried sick, petal. I had to ask Ellie Miller to call the Canterbury police to track down your whereabouts!"

"Maggie, what exactly are you doing here?" Paul asked, wishing he had the wherewithal to make the question sound as friendly as he wanted it to.

"Ah." Maggie cleared her throat, as if she were about to start interrogating Paul for a news article. "Well, I hope you'll forgive me for scheming a bit behind your back, but in light of all this, we—meaning myself and Ellie and Beth and Jocelyn—decided over breakfast this morning that it's time to bring you home."

Paul blinked. Maggie continued, undaunted.

"Now, I know you'll probably protest, but hear me out. The doctors say that your condition is very stable and that they'd be willing to discharge you, if they had some reassurance that someone was monitoring you and would call for help if you started backsliding. You've admitted yourself that your social network in Canterbury isn't the strongest—sorry, petal, that comment wasn't intended to rub it in, but I'm going to presume that you're not close enough to anyone here to feel comfortable asking them to check in on you several times a day. I further presume from the address of your flat that it's not on the ground level, and with your leg in the state that it's in, you're in no condition to handle any flights of stairs whenever you need to go outside for groceries. So, if it's going to take a few months to recover, you might as well come back to Broadchurch to recuperate a little."

"But," Paul began.

"Paul," continued Maggie, holding up a hand to quiet him, "you've told me outright that you're currently living off your savings, and that your only real professional obligation at present is some occasional translation work for your professor friend, which you can certainly do remotely. You also mentioned in passing at one point that, since the vicar's residence in Broadchurch was fully furnished, you found a place to let here in Canterbury that also came fully furnished because you didn't want to bother with acquiring and assembling a lot of furniture. I brought along the best lawyer I know when I set off for Canterbury very early this morning, and if there's any trouble breaking your lease before the new year begins tomorrow, she should be able to negotiate that handily. So, as long as you don't mind if we send Ellie to go pack all of your belongings from your flat into boxes, we can have you moved out of Canterbury within a few hours. If you don't object."

"Maggie," Paul chuckled weakly, "this is... very elaborate, but where would I _go_...?"

"Beth offered to let you stay at hers, you should know," Maggie smiled. "But it seemed overly complicated, given her work schedule and Lizzie's school schedule, not to mention the fact that you'd either be sleeping downstairs on the sofa or trapped upstairs in one of the bedrooms. There's always the Traders, of course. But our guest room is at ground level, and I work from home anyway, and Jocelyn will be in London for pretty much the whole of January, so I certainly wouldn't mind having some company, at least while you're sorting out logistics on your own end. Happy to drive you to any appointments, of course, and I promise you'd have _plenty_ of peace and quiet to recover, although I certainly won't stop you from visiting with any friends who drop by. So, what do you think?"

Paul sighed, smiling slightly.

"Well, since you've thought everything out so thoroughly, how could I say no?" he replied. "You really planned all of this out over breakfast this morning, after driving all the way over from Dorset?"

"Put an investigative journalist, a police detective, a crisis counsellor, and a barrister at one breakfast table, and you're bound to come up with some very facts-driven solutions to pressing problems," Maggie shrugged. "Glad to hear you're not going to put up too much of a fuss, though, Paul. It'll be good to have you back in Broadchurch for more than a weekend at a time."

And Paul, for his part, was amazed that he was suddenly surrounded by people who were so insistent on taking care of him. Maggie sent Ellie off with Paul's keys to go pack up his things, and Jocelyn off to go negotiate the breaking of Paul's lease on the best terms possible. Meanwhile, the journalist decided to take an increasingly bored Lizzie over to a nearby park so that Beth was free to slip into Paul's room. They didn't say much to each other, just sat there, Beth's hand gently holding Paul's, each unspeakably grateful to simply be there together.

"Paul, I have to ask," Beth said finally. "Ellie told me how high your blood alcohol levels were, the night of the accident. Was that... was that because of some of the things that I said?"

She could read Paul's answer in the way that he flinched.

"I'm so sorry," she sighed. "I had no right."

"You did," Paul argued. "It was wrong of me to withhold that information from you for so long. The way I reacted, it was because I was so ashamed for not having told you sooner. For not having trusted that you would forgive me for _all_ of my past mistakes. I hurt you, Beth, and I was so angry with myself for that. I did what I did because whatever we had made me so incredibly happy, and I was devastated to think that I had just destroyed it all."

Paul exhaled and closed his eyes.

"I went to the prison to pray with Joe Miller, Beth," he explained softly. "I won't deny that. But I wasn't praying for his acquittal. I was praying that he would see the error of his ways and plead guilty. I wanted him to spare you the pain of a full trial. When his defence team turned up, asking if I'd act as a character witness, I told them as much. Whatever Joe Miller may have believed, I never thought he was innocent. I was never on his side."

Beth was covering her mouth with her free hand, her tears pooling between her fingers.

"I wish you'd _told_ me, Paul," she whispered. "I wish you'd explained it, like you just have."

"So do I," he replied. "But if you forgive me now, then that's enough."

Beth laughed through her tears, and she leaned forward and gently kissed Paul. She kept her hand in his throughout the entire drive back to Dorset, Ellie navigating through the dark, Paul nodding off with his head on Beth's shoulder. As Paul certainly wasn't going to be awake at midnight anyway, Beth let go of his hand with good grace when they reached Maggie and Jocelyn's, to help Paul slowly through the hallway and into the guest room.

"Not quite the New Year's Eve celebration we'd been planning," he joked as Beth settled him carefully on the bed and arranged the pillows.

"But you're here," Beth replied simply. "You said you'd be in Broadchurch for New Year's Eve, and you are. And I couldn't be happier that you're here, Paul. Welcome home."

And she kissed him once more before turning out the light and slipping out the door, leaving Paul to sink rapidly into a contented slumber.


	10. Chapter 10

In the end, Beth never gave Paul the bollocking that he deserved, because Ellie beat her to it.

"How _could_ you be so stupid, Paul?!" the police sergeant seethed, her face contorted with rage.

Paul, who had never wanted to be on the receiving end of Ellie Miller's legendary temper, flinched. He usually was very grateful when Maggie stepped out of her own house to give him and his visitors privacy. Today, however, he found himself wondering how the journalist would react to her living room becoming a crime scene in her absence.

"Ellie, look," he began, "Beth..."

"Oh no," Ellie snarled, "I don't care what you told Beth to make her forgive you so quickly, you are going to listen to me when I lay out two simple rules for you, you hear? One, you do _not_ hide things like this from Beth, not when Mark was such a god-awful husband to her when it came to everything concerning Danny's death. And two, you do _not_ offer comfort and forgiveness to irredeemable shits like Joe, and I do not give one single fuck if you did it in your capacity as a vicar."

"I did coordinate everyone when we threw him out of Broadchurch," Paul grumbled, thinking it best not to argue the irredeemability point at this moment.

"Yeah, well, developing a bit of a conscience down the line doesn't bloody excuse what you did," sniffed Ellie disdainfully. "And I don't think I need to spell out for you that if you do _anything_ to hurt Beth in the future, I will likewise come drag you bodily from this house and put you in a taxi straight back to Canterbury, are we clear?"

Paul nodded.

"Good," Ellie huffed, her arms crossed. "Well. Glad to see you're looking better than you did two weeks ago, at any rate."

Had it really only been two weeks? The date provided by Paul's mobile insisted that it was indeed only halfway through January, but time passed strangely when one spent as much time sleeping as Paul had recently. It felt as if he had been back in Broadchurch forever—almost as if he had never even left.

"Ellie, thank you," Paul said candidly. "For bothering to track me down when you did."

"Just doing my job," grumbled Ellie. "Speaking of which..."

She picked up a large bag that she'd brought in with her.

"Here," she sighed, shoving it into Paul's hands. "Not that you'll need it for a while, but for fuck's sake, Paul. In the future, follow basic road safety, will you, _especially_ if you're already flouting the law by cycling while horrifically intoxicated."

And a small smile turned up the corner of Paul's mouth as he pulled from the bag a new bike helmet.

He was mulling over Ellie's visit when Beth arrived later that afternoon, right on time. Every day since Paul's arrival back in Broadchurch, Beth had appeared at Maggie's door during the convenient hour-long gap between the end of her work day and when she needed to pick Lizzie up from pre-school. Throughout that first week, when Paul was still too drained to even sit up for long stretches, Beth simply curled up next to him on the bed and spoke softly to him as he drifted in and out of sleep. Now, however, his concussion had finally subsided enough that he was spending most of his waking hours sitting on the sofa in the living room, watching anything at all interesting on the television, or chatting with Maggie when she wasn't across the house making phone calls or pounding out some new story on her computer. Ellie had packed all of Paul's books into the one large box that he had bothered breaking open, but his head still began to hurt if he read for too long. Instead, he started making use of Jocelyn's audiobooks, and by this point, the vicar was deeply puzzled as to how such an experienced prosecutor could possibly enjoy the truly outlandish plots of most of the murder mysteries in her collection.

"How are you feeling today?" Beth asked, dropping down onto the sofa next to Paul as he pulled off his headphones.

"Well, I somehow survived Hurricane Ellie earlier this afternoon," Paul said.

"Oh, no," laughed Beth. "I hope it wasn't too awful?"

"Just a scolding that I probably deserved," Paul explained. "She really cares about you, you know. You're lucky to have such a good friend. She, er, threatened to ship me back to Canterbury, if I did anything more to upset you."

"Well, that's ironic." Beth carefully leaned her head on Paul's shoulder, the one that hadn't been dislocated. "Because I don't think that anything could upset me more than your leaving again. Do you miss it there?"

And Paul realised suddenly that he hadn't really thought about Canterbury at all since being removed from the hospital by Beth and their friends. Paul was equal parts elated to be back in Broadchurch, and anxious about having to face anew his continuing uselessness in the town as he recovered and re-emerged into its daily rhythm. But Canterbury remained the oddly neutral zone that it had always been for Paul, and his memories of his life there already seemed neatly cordoned off into the past.

"No," he told Beth simply. "No, I can't say that I do."

Still, Paul really wasn't sure what he planned to do once he was better, although he kept putting off planning his next moves until some undefined future state of recovery. His convalescence felt like some sort of strange, house-bound holiday, between his general lack of obligations and Beth's daily visits and the fact that he was being fed more home-cooked meals than he could remember eating since before he left his parents' for uni.

"I really can order in takeaway sometime, too," he tried arguing.

"Paul," Maggie scoffed, "you've made that offer four times over the past two weeks, and my answer isn't changing. Can't you just accept that I like cooking for other people, yourself included?"

Paul, acquiescing, simply sighed and said grace over dinner while Maggie bowed her head respectfully.

"You know, none of this feels real right now," he added. "It's life my life is on pause until I have to go back to reality."

"I do hope you're not being so capitalist as to equate 'reality' with 'income-earning labour', petal," said Maggie wryly.

"It's just that I'm not used to feeling so cared for, in my normal life," Paul clarified, more honestly than he would have expected. "Your letting me stay here and making sure I'm well-fed, of course. Ellie Miller came by and gave me a _bike helmet_ the other day, just to make sure I didn't give myself another concussion! And Beth..."

Maggie smiled and spooned some risotto onto Paul's plate as the vicar searched for the right words.

"I still can't figure out what I ever did to deserve her attention," Paul said finally. "It's honestly astounding that someone so incredible would choose to expend so much time and energy on _me_."

"Ah, well," laughed Maggie, "isn't that just how it constantly feels, being in love?"

And maybe it was, because now that it wasn't within Paul's power to run from Beth's perfection, he simply surrendered to the unbelievable fact that she chose to go out of her way to be with him. When he finally felt well enough to withstand the jostles of the gravel paths along the cliffs, he let Beth push him along in his wheelchair, and he stopped apologising after she simply laughed and said, "You're a lot heavier to push than Lizzie, but nothing that I can't handle." Which was true, because Beth Latimer was the toughest person that Paul knew—although fortunately, Beth also knew her limits and phoned Maggie the one time she walked Paul to the bottom of the hill and then realised that she didn't stand a chance of pushing him all the way back up on her own.

Ellie Miller was an unanticipated but not wholly unexpected visitor. Paul was much more perplexed when her boss appeared at the door a few days later.

"DI Hardy!" said Maggie, answering the door. "Is everything all right?"

"Er, yeah," Alec replied awkwardly. "Just wanted to come say hello, see how he's doing."

Maggie stepped aside, and Alec entered the house as cautiously as if he were entering enemy territory. (This might not have been entirely off the mark, Paul reflected, given what Becca's bits of gossip had indicated about the historical relationship between the curmudgeonly Detective Inspector and the staff of _The Echo_.)

"Reverend," nodded Alec.

"I'll be upstairs, if either of you need anything," Maggie said, and she quickly disappeared.

Paul watched Alec warily as he glanced about the room and then lowered himself into a chair opposite Paul.

"You all right?" Alec asked after a moment, in the matter-of-fact tone he would use if he were waiting for a suspect to confess to a crime.

"Like you care," scoffed Paul quietly.

The perpetual furrow between Alec's eyebrows deepened.

"Are you like this with all of your visitors?"

"Look, I think I can guess why you're here," Paul said wearily. "You were right; I was wrong. There, I've said it, isn't that what you came for?"

"What're you on about?" Alec sounded genuinely annoyed by now.

"About the fact that faith might not be enough." Paul's voice caught on the harshness of his own words, but he pressed on. "About the fact that, when I came face-to-face with a problem that I thought I couldn't solve, I didn't go to a church and seek God's advice and consolation, I went to a pub and... and _indulged_ in alcohol for the first time in five years. I've tried to be better than I was in the past, but in the end, I'm nothing more than a fraud. And now you, who have no faith, can sit back and smirk all you like, because I was never as righteous as I always wanted to be."

Alec watched impassively as the young vicar swallowed what might have been a sob, his eyes pressed shut. And Paul willed himself to remain calm, even though he was finally voicing the lingering fears and insecurities that had followed him from Canterbury back to Broadchurch. He no longer worried about Beth's judgement, when it came to his all-too-human failures. But Paul's faith, which once had been everything to him, had not been enough to make him happy in Canterbury and had not been enough to sustain him through the possibility that he had lost Beth for good. With his conviction that the Church was his true calling suddenly unstable, Paul felt as if the ground beneath his feet was sifting slowly away. If this wasn't his calling—if God didn't want him on this Earth to help others—then who was Paul, and why was he worth the space that he took up in others' lives?

"Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ," Alec said, unexpectedly.

Paul blinked.

"Galatians 6:2," he replied automatically. "How...?"

"You found your religion later in life; I was force-fed mine earlier on and lost it since." Alec shrugged. "Look, I didn't come here to belittle you, whatever you may think of me. Just that Miller's been ranting at me about you every other day, and I thought I'd come by to try to talk some sense into you."

 _Great_ , thought Paul, steeling himself for yet another round of being shouted at for trying to talk some sense into Joe Miller, once upon a time.

"Stop trying to run away from this place," Alec said. "It doesn't work like that. Even if you leave this town, the things that you're running from will follow you, and you'll end up just missing everything you left behind."

"I'm not _running_ from..."

"Yeah, you are," Alec interrupted calmly. "We're all trying to escape demons of some sort or another. I tried to get away from here, you know. Thought my work was done and I could finally leave for good. Not have to deal with all the smiley people anymore, all that."

Paul was surprised when he caught himself smiling at the unnecessary grumbling.

"Anyway, I left, and I thought I didn't miss it," sighed Alec. "And then, the second I stopped having any reason to be where I'd gone, I realised that I had to come back. Even if I spent my entire half-year here in a state of constant misery, it occurred to me that there wasn't any place I'd rather be."

"And why's that?"

Alec cleared his throat.

"Look, it might not shock you to hear that I'm not exactly good at making friends," he said, and Paul bit back some cutting remark just in time. "I've never really been part of what you'd call a _community_. But I came back to Broadchurch because it was where I'd left behind someone who'd be happier if I came back. Yeah, some things about this town will always drive me mad enough to make me want to go jump off the bloody cliffs. But it was worth it to come back for the person who needed me here as much as I needed her. And you should consider doing the same."

Paul coughed out a small little laugh.

"I appreciate that, but there's a pretty stark difference in our professional roles here," he pointed out. "You're still useful. I'm not."

"Define 'useful'," shrugged Alec. "Miller could do my job just as well as I could, we've both always known that. And has it ever occurred to you that maybe the times are just changing? Even if you left Broadchurch, do you really think you'd find a more enthusiastic congregation anywhere else?"

Paul had been denying this possibility for so long that it was like being slapped in the face to hear it come out of Alec Hardy's godless mouth. He wanted to retort that the Detective Inspector's cynicism had reached new heights, but Paul had walked into too many churches at Evensong to find a sermon being delivered to only one or two elderly listeners.

"So where does that leave me, then?" he asked softly.

"Galatians 6:2," Alec answered. "From everything Miller's said, it sounds like being around you is one of the few things left that can make Beth Latimer smile. My catching her son's killer didn't do that; and even if he had been thrown in prison for the rest of his life, I don't think that would have done it, either. If you're trying to define 'useful', I'd say it's when a single person can help bear a burden that the entire criminal justice system combined couldn't. And I know, you want to make it your business to spread the Word far and wide, rather than to just make life better for one person every single day. But if you have as much faith as you've always professed, haven't you ever considered that maybe God _wanted_ you to go into that pub and drink so much that you'd hurt yourself and Miller would drag you back here?"

Paul said nothing. Alec sighed and stood.

"Listen, I really am sorry if I've offended you with anything I've said," he added. "But I look around this entire world, and all I see are breaking or broken relationships. My marriage, Miller's marriage, the Latimers, the Gillespies, Lee Ashworth and Claire Ripley, the Wintermans. Your hosts are probably one of the only genuinely happy couples I know. My point is, if you've got something that actually seems worth pursuing, then for god's sake, don't just throw it away due to some sense of moral righteousness. You'll still have the whole rest of your life to be a vicar if it doesn't work out, you know."

Never in his life had Paul thought he would get such a constructive conversation out of someone as generally terrible at conversation as Alec Hardy. But the police inspector's words stayed with Paul over the next several weeks. Maybe it wasn't wrong to dedicate his life to helping one person, instead of an entire congregation's worth of souls. Maybe that truly _was_ doing God's work, as much as anything else.

"Would you consider moving into my place?" Beth asked him one sunny Saturday afternoon. They were sitting on a picnic blanket up on the cliffs, looking out over the view. "Now that you're well enough that you don't need someone keeping an eye on you constantly."

"You don't worry that people will talk?" Paul replied.

Beth shot him a worried little look.

"No," she said. "I like to think that, if this means as much to you as it does to me, then it'll last. And why should I care then, if people talk?"

Paul reached out and stroked Beth's hair, glimmering auburn in the winter sunlight, and gently pulled her towards him for a kiss.

"Yes, then," he answered softly. "As long as you'll have me."

They sat side by side on the cliffs, shoulders touching, until Beth finally decided that she should go take Lizzie off of Maggie's hands and slowly wheeled Paul back to the house.

When they arrived, however, Beth was startled to find Ellie standing in the kitchen with a cup of tea. Lizzie and Fred were happily licking batter off of the spoons with which Lizzie had just 'helped' Maggie bake a cake.

"What're you doing here?" Beth asked.

"Dining room table?" Ellie asked Maggie, and when the journalist nodded, Ellie shepherded Beth and Paul into the adjacent room. "Oh, stop looking so nervous, Paul, I'm not here to shout at you again—at least, I hope that's not where this conversation is going."

Beth squeezed Paul's shoulder reassuringly as she settled his wheelchair next to the seat that she claimed at the dining room table. Ellie noticed and suppressed a smile.

"Maggie and I have been talking, and we have a proposition for you, Paul," Ellie continued, folding her hands on the table before her.

"And for you, too, Beth," Maggie added as she poured tea for both Beth and Paul, then returned to the kitchen for milk and sugar.

"It seems that you, Beth, pitched the idea of setting up a charity to honour Danny's memory," Ellie said. "Back during the trial."

"Yeah, but I was voted down," Beth said, and she shot a little pouting glance at Paul, who smiled back sheepishly. "You two thought I couldn't get funding to start anything like that."

"Ah, well, I may have spoken too soon," Maggie shrugged as she slid into a chair at the table. "What would you say if I provided the money to get the charity up and running?"

Beth stared.

"Maggie, that's incredibly generous of you, but I couldn't..."

"Yes, you could," Maggie argued calmly, "because I've been turning a profit off of your personal tragedy, and I can't say I've been sleeping easily over it."

She reached across the table for a folder, opened it, and pulled out a sheet of paper that she slid across the table to Beth.

"Current total of my share from the sales of the book that Mark and I wrote last year," she explained. "It's not a vast fortune, but it should be enough to get you off the ground."

Beth looked up from the page, gaping.

"I can't accept this," she said.

"Please, take it, petal," Maggie insisted. "It'll make me feel so much better."

Beth sat back, stunned, then looked back up at her friends with a shaky grin.

"So Danny's legacy will be to help other kids, after all," she said, brushing at her eyes with the back of her hand. "And that's how he'll be remembered."

Paul reached under the table and squeezed Beth's other hand.

"But what should be the charity's specific focus?" Beth continued. "I know I want it to help kids, but I don't know how."

"All sorts of considerations there," shrugged Ellie. "Probably best to go local, unless you do some research and really see a nationwide need that's not being met."

"Maybe a group for teenagers who need help, to talk things over?" Paul proposed.

"Nah, if they're anything like Tom, they'll never _willingly_ talk about their feelings, especially if you ask them to," Ellie snorted.

"Just a thought," said Maggie pensively. "I've always been honoured that Olly trusted me as much as he did when he was a teenager, and I'm certain that that only came about because I gave him interesting work and a fair amount of responsibility, and I never asked him about his personal life. In fact, I'd say that giving him all of that space and a degree of professional respect is what _let_ him open up to me about things that were bothering him, things that I don't think he'd ever have shared if I'd pried. So that might be a useful model—creating something for kids to _do_ , within a community and a space where they can feel safe."

"Makes perfect sense to me, as a starting point," Ellie shrugged. "What do you think, Paul?"

"I... well, yes, it makes sense to me, too, but I don't see why my opinion matters," Paul added.

"Oh, right, didn't we mention?" Ellie shot Maggie a conspiratorial smirk. "We were thinking you could help run the charity, if Beth agrees."

Paul blinked.

"Sorry?"

"Well, from what we've gleaned, you want to directly help the wider community, you don't currently have a steady job in Canterbury, you _do_ have experience running programming and such for St Bede's, Beth wants you here, and the charity would need _someone_ in charge of its operations," Ellie enumerated, counting off her arguments on her fingers as she went. "Only makes sense, really. Could even make it a religious charity, I suppose, if you're so insistent on keeping God in the picture."

"We'll have to see," Beth interrupted gently. "I think it's only fair that Mark be on the board of any charity created in Danny's name, and he'd probably say no to a religious charity."

"He'd probably say no to my helping manage the charity, too," Paul pointed out.

"I'll talk to him," Beth reassured him. "And he'll have to come round on that, eventually. Even if he's acting like a child right now, he's gonna have to accept us sooner or later."

 _Us._ Paul savoured that _us_ —savoured the certainty with which Beth pronounced it in front of their friends, savoured the promise that it held for the future. His grip on Beth's hand under the table tightened slightly, and even without looking at her, he could tell that she was smiling and that her smile was just for him.

"So you'll stay then, Paul?" Maggie pressed. "Please just say yes, petal, it'll make us all so happy if you do."

Paul turned to Beth.

"Yes," he said, a equally broad smile spreading across his own face. "Yes, I'll stay."

And Paul might have sat there gazing at Beth for the rest of the afternoon, if Ellie hadn't suddenly said, "Oh!" rather loudly, startling everyone.

"I don't know why it only just occurred to me," she laughed. "Not that it sounds like you need any more reason to stay, Paul. But if you really are so concerned about not being connected to your faith on a regular basis, the church _still_ doesn't have a new vicar, you know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I may have an unnecessary number of feels about the quirky mentor-mentee relationship between Maggie and Olly, and Maggie's entire spiel about Olly in this chapter is based on a whole little [backstory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23731261) I have about Maggie taking a teenage Olly under her wing at _The Echo_ , back in the day.


	11. Chapter 11

Beth had never been a church-going woman, and she had never intended to become one. And yet, as she stood in the churchyard after Paul's first sermon since his return to Broadchurch, she couldn't help but feel proud of the small crowd she had assembled to welcome the vicar back: Ellie and her boys, Chloe and her boyfriend, Maggie and Jocelyn, Alec Hardy and his daughter, Lucy Stevens (no doubt at her sister's behest), even Nige Carter and his mum (once Beth had convinced Nige that it wouldn't be any sort of betrayal of Mark's friendship to come to the service). Maggie had profiled Paul on her blog a few days prior, complete with a short interview, and no doubt that had also pulled a few curious onlookers into St Bede's to puzzle over the temporary disappearance and subsequent return of Paul Coates to Broadchurch. It seemed unlikely that future Sunday morning attendance would be quite as robust, but it certainly had meant starting things out on the right foot.

The late March weather had meant gloomy skies all morning, and the rain had started coming down in earnest right at the beginning of Paul's sermon, pattering persistently against the old lead-glass windows. But by the time the congregation had risen to its feet to greet each other and shuffle slowly out of the church, the downpour had stopped and patches of blue sky had appeared overhead. Beth took it to be a good sign, all in all. Rain to wash away the old, and blue sky to promise better days to come.

"Everything set?" she muttered to Ellie as they embraced just outside the church.

"Miraculously," Ellie grinned. "See you when you pick Lizzie up later today, yeah?"

"Yeah." Beth glanced over to where Fred and Lizzie were chasing each other through the tombstones. "Ellie, thank you again. For everything."

"What're friends for?" Ellie shrugged, and she gave Beth's shoulder a squeeze before striding off into the churchyard, shouting after both their children.

Beth, for her part, wandered out among the graves, her hand skimming the top of her mum's headstone, then the top of Danny's. She was still standing there when Paul finally had said his farewells to all of the old friends who had been there to welcome him home. Beth appreciated that, even heady with victory (as he must have felt), Paul said nothing when he caught up with her, only wrapped an arm around her shoulders and let her take the time she needed with her son's memory.

"That was lovely, Paul," she said finally, turning towards him with a small smile. "I'm surprised you were able to pull yourself away from your fans as soon as you did."

"Well, we'll see how many of them come back next week," laughed Paul sheepishly. "Still. It feels nice to be a defined part of a community again. I feel, I dunno, _anchored_ in a way that I haven't for months. Professionally, I mean," he added hastily, before Beth could tease him.

For Beth was certain that Paul now felt as anchored within her existence as she felt in his. It wasn't just that no one stared in surprise any longer when she and Paul sat at a restaurant together with their fingers entwined on top of the table, nor that she now woke up more mornings than not with her arms around Paul's waist and his nose buried in her hair. Paul had told Beth that he was surprised at how easily the rest of Beth's world had accepted him: how Chloe cheerfully ranted at him about her studies when she came by for dinner at her mum's; how Lizzie demanded that he read her bedtime stories in funny voices; how even Mark had been cordial the one time they had spoken since the new year ("Look, you'll have to forgive me if it takes me some time to get used to the idea, but I really do trust you to be good to all of my girls, and I suppose I can't ask for much more than that"). In some ways, watching the vicar lecture from his pulpit this morning, it felt like Paul had never left Broadchurch in the first place. In other ways, though, it felt infinitely different and so much _better_.

"I think he'd approve," Paul added, looking at Danny's tombstone. "I hope he would."

"Yeah," Beth nodded. "Me, too."

After much brainstorming, they had decided to use their initial funding for the charity to open a small workshop where local kids could work on repairing and refurbishing old skateboards and bicycles, in the hours just after school. Paul knew more about bicycles, of course, having attended a number of maintenance classes at the height of his cycling phase in Canterbury, but Beth had derived the entire idea from Danny's love of skateboarding and felt strongly that the maintenance should extend to skateboards, as well. They figured it would give the kids the space and purpose that Maggie had recommended providing, to build trust and open up the possibility of deeper conversation with Paul and anyone else who might eventually join the team. And, unlike the computers at the heart of the IT club that Paul had taught at the local school, kids couldn't hide secrets in the axles and gears of bicycles and skateboards.

Paul pulled Beth a little closer to him and kissed the top of her head, and she snuggled into his warmth. The charity's official launch was set for tomorrow. Beth had no idea if they were ready, but she supposed they'd find out soon enough. Trial and error, like most anything in life.

"Where's Lizzie?" Paul asked suddenly, tensing a bit in alarm as he scanned the churchyard.

"Ellie took her for the afternoon, don't worry." Beth pulled away from him with a shy little smile. "We've been planning a little surprise for you, actually. A way of congratulating you for finding your way back to where you belong. Come on, it's supposed to be up this way..."

Paul's steps were still a bit stiff as he followed Beth up the hill and back towards the church. He had only had his casts off for a week or two and was just starting physical therapy, Maggie gamely driving Paul to any appointments that fell midday when Beth was still at work. But the doctors had given the go-ahead when Maggie quietly asked about this latest idea that she and Ellie had schemed up behind Paul's back, and so Beth stepped aside and watched with a pleased smirk as Paul came to a halt alongside her and his breath caught at the sight of his old bicycle.

"How did you...?"

"Well, the police apparently collected it after you were hit," Beth shrugged. "And it was just cluttering up their evidence locker, so when Ellie called to ask about it, they were more than happy to let her collect it. She and Maggie apparently split the cost of getting the frame bent back into shape and the damaged parts replaced, I didn't know about any of it until a few days ago."

Paul stepped slowly around his beloved bicycle, running his hands along the new handlebars and wheels. He could tell where the frame had been coaxed back into a very close approximation of its former straightness, even under the fresh paint job (still dark green, like the coat hanging near the front door of the house where he somehow now lived). But Paul had been told that steel would hold if bent back into place, and so he trusted that this would be the case.

And suddenly Paul realised that this was what it meant to be missed, this was what it meant to be loved—not just by Beth, but by an entire community of friends and acquaintances who wanted to make sure that he always had the means to keep moving forward, even when he felt like his life had stalled and was teetering unsteadily. Perhaps the majority of people in Broadchurch only _needed_ a vicar for the expected weddings and christenings and funerals and holiday services. But after today, Paul felt reassured that, whether or not he was _needed_ by the Broadchurch community, he was certainly _wanted_.

"Wow," he choked, caught between laughter and tears, "I certainly have my share of thank yous to convey, don't I."

"And all the time you need to convey them," Beth reminded him.

Leaning up against the church wall behind Paul's bike was another bike—newer, painted a glossy black, picked out by Chloe after Ellie had mentioned that her mum might need a good bike on hand sometime soon. Beth unclipped one of the two helmets dangling from the handlebars and tossed it to Paul, who caught it and grinned when he recognised it as the helmet that Ellie had foisted on him.

"You sure I'm ready for this?" he asked her, clipping the helmet below his chin.

"Maggie asked your doctors, and they said you'd probably be fine for very short rides," Beth said, clipping her own helmet into place. "Besides, only one way to find out, isn't there, by taking a bit of a leap of faith?"

Paul swung one leg over his bicycle and exhaled. Beth was right, of course. He had wasted too much time already, worrying about what could go wrong, instead of trusting that things would come out right. Paul had fled Broadchurch fearing that his sense of purpose in the world could not withstand his community's lack of faith. But somehow, only here in Broadchurch did Paul feel God's presence everywhere and at all times—in the faces on the streets, in the friendly waves from neighbours, in the imposing cliffs and the sandy shoreline, in Alec Hardy's grumbling, in Ellie Miller's scolding, in Maggie Radcliffe's home-cooked meals, in Beth Latimer's smiles. Never again would the vicar doubt that God had placed him exactly where he needed to be, if only Paul himself could have a little more patience and a little more faith in his fellow townspeople's inherent grace.

"Here goes nothing," he told Beth.

"I'll be right there for you, if you start to lose your balance," Beth promised him.

And Paul believed Beth, believed that she would indeed catch him if he started to fall. He shot one more smile at the miraculous woman whose mere existence made his every day a blessing. Then, with a whoop of exhilaration, Paul pushed off and flew down the side of the hill, Beth's laughter following close behind him all the way.


End file.
